Steve Plotnicki

No I am not talking about Yvonne. Let's move the example to something else. A person is going to eat three hamburgers. DB Burger, Peter Luger and a Big Mac from McDonalds. The person decides that the Big Mac is the best of the three. How do we tell if they are an expert and they are correct, or a know-nothing and they don't know what they are talking about?

Now I'm really confused. If we all agree on what complex means, it becomes an objective standard. How do we lose objectivityy by doing that? And I asked about the pasta menu at Babbo, not Lupa. Take the pasta dish that Yvonne likes at Lupa and serve it at Babbo and then see if it is still the favorite. And let me ask the follow-up question to that, and I make no assertions about anyone by using this example. What is the difference between liking the pasta at Lupa better and not knowing that it isn't better? And I have to go out to a metting now so I'm offline for a few hours.

You haven't given examples of complexity, you have given examples of things that are bad. There is no current use of the word complex in food or wine where it means bad. And while you might say that I am just speaking shorthand when I say that, I point out, that when you say that you are just arguing semantics. If we can't agree on the language to have this conversation, and I submit that my offering the commonly held verbiage as being acceptable language, I don't see how we will ever get past the semantics. Nobody goes to a restaurant to have grape jam mixed with fish soup. So that example is meaningless and doesn't prove anything. And to call that pairing "complex" is sort of disingenuous. But people do eat fish soup with rouille. And some rouille is thickened with flour and some with grated boiled potato. Those two things are worth comparing and indeed, we can create a hierarchy of which one might make the rouille a better accompaniment for your soup. Tis the same for the peach/peach dessert. People go to restaurant to eat desserts and peaches in all their glory, in any configuration, are acceptable desserts so they are fodder for the discussion. As to whether simple instructions to a VCR are preferrable over complicated instructions, I concur. But the same doesn't hold true for food and wine. Complexity, whether it is in texture or in taste or both, is the key to quality. The wine that lasts the longest, so it has time to develop tertiary flavors, and which has the longest finish, is the most valued wine. So as Lxt says, so many people agree with this (in fact almost the entire market for fine wines) that to argue that "complex" or "better" mean something other then this doesn't really make any sense. Those phrases have commonly accepted definitions. Let me ask you, since I know you and Yvonne are both fans, isn't the reason that you like the pasta tasting menu at Babbo so much because they are more complex pasta dishes then you are usually served, or maybe that you have ever seen? Isn't the progression of textures and building flavor complexity over the meal what makes it special (mind you I've never had it but I can tell from reading people's reviews?) Why isn't Mario just serving plates of steamed penne with tomato, mozz and basil? Or spaghetti and meatballs. I love both of those dishes. Why not just serve them? Or why is the food at Babbo a certain way, at Lupa a different way, and at Otto a third way, and at the Paninotecca a different way? What distingushes those restaurants from each other? Isn't it levels of complexity?

Yes but the banks are in Chiasso. There are 33 of them there I believe. And I've never been on a train in France that has ever been delayed, other then for weather (the Mistral.) But I've travelled from Zurich to Milano on the train and have waited for them to change the engine from a Swiss one to an Italian one. Mama Mia. I hope those guys don't get paid by the hour. It felt like they went out for lunch in the middle.

Your post does a good job of differentiating between organized mishaps and unorganized ones. Clearly, flight delays happen everywhere and for numerous reasons. Nothing about your flight delay at CDG is unique to the French, including not having an extra plane around. Are you under the impression that airlines have these $50 to $100 million dollar objects just sitting around? That could be any airline in any place. But going on strike in the middle of the day, without any advance warning, now that is in a different class and begins to approach stupidity. These days walkoffs are organized and management is warned in advance so they can make alternate arrangements. And I spend quite a lot of time in London and I will have you know that things work quite well there.

Two different things. One might want their personal preference and the eventual conclusion to reconcile. But how one gets there is an objective evaluation. The Supreme Court Justices, hopefully, use an objective analysis to reach their conclusion. When they don't, say as in Gore vs Bush, it's transparent that they have contorted the objective analysis in a way that has eliminated objectivity and nothing is left but preference. So when Toby says that the addition of those outside elements improved the heirloom tomatoes by bringing out acidity and sweetness that wouldn't be as prominent when serving simple sliced tomatoes, she is assessing it objectively. She might not even like it that way. But that doesn't change anything because she is describing the attribute, not her like/dislike of it. But I am willing to take it a step further and say, show me an example where the value added to those tomatoes isn't considered "better" by gourmets at large. And then Lxt jumps in and says that if gourmets at large accept this premise, doesn't that validate the use of the word "better?"

This is why I have my own ism.

He cooked at Vienna 79 back in the 80's and had a long stretch at Cafe des Artistes before opening this place. And the food is much more simple then what they serve at Danube. It's tavern food. Simple plates. Tasty though.

But as much as I agree with Toby, there are people who eat out and are happy getting the perfect peach. Yes it puzzles me as well because why eat out then other then it's easier?

Why is that?

But you could live in a place with great food and things actually work. It's called France . I think one of the most interesting things about Italy is when you are leaving it by car and you cross the border into France or Switzerland. It's like you have travelled through a time warp. And I'm trying to say that in a way where I am not making value judgements about it. But the difference in efficiency and personal comfort is in plain view and it is striking. I understand that there is a charm to it. And I can find it charming as well when I am in the countryside or along the coast in a resort town or fishing village. But Milano should be a modern and efficient city where the buildings are clean/repaired and things work properly. That's the whole point of a city.

Four of us had what I consider a fine meal at Thomas Beisl, the new Austrian influenced bistro that is directly across the street from BAM in Downtown Brooklyn. We started with a platter of the charcuterie (is there not a German word for this?) which was comprised of two tasty Salamis, some thinly sliced Smoked Bacon (especially delicious) some Black Forest Ham (a little mild) and some Chicken Liver Terrine served with a small bowl of Cornichons. A good dish for the table to split and it offered good value at $13. My appetizer of Salmon Tartar with a Tomato Fondue was less successful as it was lacking in both salt and acidity. I followed with a Pot au Feu (again, Taflespitz?) Short ribs that were deboned and then sliced against the grain into long, moderately thick slices that gave the appearance of brisket. Delicious broth with a sparse but perfectly poached assortment of vegetables. Quite tasty and one of the better Pot au Feus I've had in the U.S., as well as the perfect thing to eat on a night when my car was showing the external temperature at 10 degrees. Brrrr. Also pretty good value as it came in at $17 I believe for enough food for two people. My dessert of Strawberries with Yogurt and Whipped Cream was fine but not worth the calories as Mrs P might say. We BYO'd and brought a 2001 J.J. Christoffel Riesling Kabinett that was just terrific. A 1999 Domaine Gramenon Cote de Rhone Sierra le Sud was less successful as I thought it a bit diluted albeit still having the peppery kick that a CdR can have. There was also a half bottle of a Nuits-St.-George Blanc but I'm not sure of the producer and vintage. Arlot? There was a bit of a scene when the bill was presented as they intitially charged us $30 a bottle for corkage. I started to put up a fuss and the manager came over which resulted in a long and philosophical conversation about corkage and what was the appropriate price to charge at a place in Bkln where the entrees are $15-$17. At first he told us that it was supposed to be $25 and not $30, but eventually he decided to charge us $25 for all three bottles. So if you intend to BYO here, I would check the price before you go. Otherwise my meal was quite enjoyable and I wouldn't hesitate to go back. And the place although not quite full, had a friendly and lively atmosphere.

Is Hovis good bread? Is Wonder Bread good bread? They use cheap commercial flour and commercial yeast and mass produce their bread. Is an opinion thinking their bread is good a valid one? Like I said, I was always under the impression that Italy had good bread but people are telling me otherwise. And whether they do have good bread or not is a function of a number of things. The type of flour they use, the type of yeast, how good the water is, and whatever else they might add to the ingredients, followed by what type of oven they use. But it surely isn't is a matter of opinion.

Well it all depends on what the compromises are doesn't it? Some compromises are acceptable and others aren't. In general, the ones I have reported on, I do not find acceptable. Too maddening for me. I cannot live in a place where the Post Office doesn't have stamps. It's just too easy to create a system to insure you never run out of them. I need to live in a place like Germany where things work properly. Life is too short to waste that much time getting simple things done. It's hard enough getting the hard things done. But on the good side of the ledger, my friend and I decided that Italy has better salumi etc. then France does. I have a question for you (or anyone else for that matter.) In Italy when you go into a cafe for a drink, you have to pay first and then give the counterman your little ticket when you order. Why that custom? Is the entire country a bunch of serial latte macchiato thieves? Second question. Why when it is crowded three deep at the counter does the guy who is in the third row back feel that he is entitled to reach over everyone else and yell out his order to the counterman as if nobody else was there?

I think if you take Lxt's example too far, and say that price is a completely accurate assessment of value, it gets a little strained. We can all come up with loads of exceptions. Fat Guy's favorite one is the price of filet mignon being higher then strip steak while strip is a superior product. And Gavin tries to complicate it futher by showing that if we compare a peach to the theory of evolution or gravity, we can really get into trouble. But as Lxt has said, that when you are comparing like things, in this instance all peach desserts, you aren't comparing apples and oranges, er, peaches. So if you look at Jaybee's little example, why would people pay more for Peach Melba if it didn't offer something more then a plain peach? And might I add, that the thing it offers is additional complexity over just the naked peach. Peach Melba What is the argument against this other then "I don't like it?" Because clearly restaurants offer Peach Melba, or like dishes all of the time. They rarely offer fresh peaches unadorned, unless of course like Robert S. says you are talking about Italy. But even in Italy, unless you are in a simple tratorria it is likely your dessert will be prepared and not just fresh fruit. How can anyone say that a plain peach is "better" when the evidence shows that people aren't asking for them and are at the same time willing to pay twice as much for a prepared peach dessert?

ChefG - I ate at Trio this past November. You can find the review on The Heartland board under the title of Trotter's & Trio etc. My question for you is, why 21 courses? I found the number of courses a little oppressive. Can't the same statement, possibly a more focused one, be made in say, 14 courses, just to pick a number mind you.

I can't think of a single instance where something being less complex has more value or is considered better then something more complex. I don't think you should reward the fact that they are incapable of making a proper dessert with that type of statement.

I ate at Antico Martini once upon a time. It was 1983 and I was on my honeymoon. We were staying at the Hotel Fenice and the restaurant was literally attached to the hotel. I don't recall my meal as being terrific although it wasn't terrible either. It wasn't as good as the pizza at Teatro though. But boy did we hate Venice. Are you surprised to hear that?

I love the White House Sub Shop. All the way down to the Tasti-Cakes.

Maybe they should just give up their sovereignity (is that a word) and become part of France.

Joe H - Thanks for telling it like it is. Your post reminds me that the person I had dinner with last week in Paris, and who lives in Rome, told me the bread in general in Italy isn't very good. I was sort of surprised to hear them say that because I was under the impression they had good bread there. But it sounds like you have been around the block there. What do you say about the bread and how does that relate to Pepe's having better crust then a place like Teatro or Chez Black on the beach in Positano.

But you've posed it in a way that is rhetorical and doesn't represent the manner in which people who are knowledgable about these things speak. When I drink a 1959 Latour and say the wine is tremendously complex, people who understand wine know that the concept of complimentary is subsumed in the concept of complexity. Because among the trade and amateurs of wine, that is indeed what complex means. And if the complexity wasn't complimentary, I would probably just saysomething like the wine is bad or that it has complexity but is not harmonious. However I described it, I would qualify complexity in a way that the reader would know it was complex in a way that made it bad. Cheese's complexity comes from a combination of the way it is produced and the way it is aged. A restaurant only serves it. And while you might serve it with a garnish, it never really is combined with external ingredients like fresh fruit is.

But that statement doesn't get us anywhere. Does the person who thinks that frozen strawberries are as good as perfect fresh ones have a credible opinion? No, frozen strawberries fail because of objective reasons that have nothing to do with what one likes. We discuss these things like they haven't been decided already. It's already been decided that fresh fruit is generally inadequate to be served as a dessert in a nice restaurant. If that wasn't the case you would see them serve it more often but they don't. And that is the case even though you might not prefer it that way.

No you are describing preference and not evaluating the two desserts in a vacuum. Make a list of what each one has to offer. How does the prepared dessert not come out ahead because it has all the attributes of the same peach raw, but is enhanced by bringing contrasting and complimentary textures and flavors into the mix? You might not like those additions, but it isn't about liking. It's about recognizing the differences. This example is really a non-starter because you are confusing off-pairings with the concept of complexity. When I use the word complexity, I mean complex and complimentary. That is why if you took the perfect peach and you peeled it, and you slow roasted it and kept basting it with vanilla until it became the perfect consistancy, and then you halved it and served it with a light whipped cream that was lightly flavored with lemon and sugar, you would have a "better desssrt" providing that you were in a nice restaurant and not sitting on a dock after eating a bucket of fried clams. Then a perfect but raw peach would be better wouldn't it?

Well I would agree with this as most eating in the United States is based on idiotic customs. All you have to do is to be in California at a donut shop and they serve you fresh, right out of the oven donuts. And then you realize they have given you Creamora with your coffee. And when you ask for real milk, they tell you they don't have any. All countries specialize in doing something stupid. In Italy, it just happens to be their inefficient way of handling simple daily things. Since I'm the kind of guy who has no patience for a telephone system that can't get you the phone numbers you are looking for, it rubs me the wrong way. Here is something that happened when we were there. We arrived at Malpensa at 3:15 for our 4:30 Alitalia flight to Lyon. When we got to the desk, the women sitting behind it told us that the flight was cancelled due to fog in Lyon. She told us that Alitalia was offering to fly us to Geneva and then bus us to Lyon. She told us we would be in Geneva at 5:10, but could not guarantee what time the bus left for Lyon, only that she had heard it was about a 2 hour ride. I asked her if there was a later flight and she said that Alitalia had an 8:00pm flight but that she wasn't hopeful. That Milan was supposed to get the same fog and she was pretty sure that the later flight would be cancelled. So what to do? We were supposed to be at an 8:00 wine tasting dinner with 12 other people in Lyon. It was then that I noticed that right across the way was the Air France check-in counter and I asked her if AF had any flights to Lyon. She said that they had a 6:00pm flight. I asked her why they couldn't put us on that flight? It was only then that the truth came out and she told us that if we asked her to she would endorse our ticket over to Air France. There she was holding that info in her pocket all the time and she was trying to get us to fly to Geneva and take a bus to Lyon instead. It was at that exact moment in time that my friend and I looked at each other and said "tre stogari." So we walked across the aisle to Air France and they told us we couldn't check in until 4:00pm. We asked them about fog in Lyon and they seemed to know nothing about it. But we were still concerned that we wouldn't make our dinner if the flight was delayed or cancelled. So we went down to the Avis desk to ask them how long it would take us to drive to Lyon if we rented a car. Here is what they told me. "Let's see, it takes about an hour and a half to drive to Genoa, then about another hour and a half to get to Nice. Then from Nice to Lyon, possibly another 5 or 6 hours. So it will take you 8 or 9 hours." I shook my head and broke the news to them that Milano and Lyon were on about the same latitude and that the way to get there was through one of the passes through the Alps. When I said that, they looked at me like deer in the headlight. Finally one of them looked it up in the computer and they concluded that it would take around 5 hours. Not enough time to make dinner and that's with everything going right. What to do now? All of a sudden I had a brainstorm. On the way downstairs to the car rental location, I noticed there was a business center in the airport with Internet access. So we went in there and I logged on to the St. Exupery Airport site (the airport in Lyon) and called the hotline number on my cell phone. I got an English speaking operator on the line and asked her about the fog. "What fog?" she replied. Isn't the airport closed for fog I asked? "Not at all" she said. "It hasn't been closed once today and we are expecting these conditions through the evening." I told her thanks, hung up the phone, told my friend the story and we looked at each other and said....... As an aside to all of this. And what I thought was the funniest thing in all of Italy, was the escalator from the lower level of the terminal to the Departures floor. Malpensa airport unlike other airports which exist on two levels, arrivals on the first floor and departures on the second floor (the French seemed to have flip-flopped this configuration in Terminal 1 at DeGaule for no other reason then to create those surreal escalators that crisscross between floors, aesthetically pleasing but the height of silliness,) has a basement level where the rental car offices and the trains are. But for some reason, in this country where the buildings seem like they haven't been cleaned since Mussolini and where many of them look like they are about to fall down, they decided to build an escalator that spans from the basement to the second floor without stopping. The thing must be well in excess of 100 feet long! When you get on it, it feels like you are taking an escalator straight up into the clouds. We got on it and we started laughing almost immediately and after the first 20 feet or so I started to hum Stairway to Heaven. Or maybe we can describe the new rules for going to see The Last Supper which we did on Friday morning. I had seen it twice before but my friend had never seen it. But I had not been since it was reconditioned and the institute in Venice was in charge of admission. They have installed the craziest system for getting into see it. First of all you have to make an appointment. And if you are more then a few minutes late, basta, you're done for. Make a new one. Then when you get in, to hire a audio tour you have to leave your credit card. That's a new one for me. Are there loads of thieves out there who are dying to steal the Last Supper audio guide? Then they have installed a very fancy series of electronic doors that limit your access to entering the church. You go though a door and find yourself in a little anteroom. Then the door closes behind you and you are locked into the space. It is only after a minute or two that the front door opens and you enter a new space where the door locks behind you. It's like entering Fort Knox for godsakes. What are they worried about, somebody is going to steal the painting? It's painted on the f***king wall for god's sake. Do they think someone is going to chisel the wall? So excuse me for my little rant about Italy. But it's a truly maddening place in many ways. Maybe they are all happy living their lives in a way that when they miss their train, they shrug their shoulders and say we'll just get the next one. That just won't work for me. Tony - Okay maybe I was a bit harsh. I will begrudgingly admit that that there are a few good cooks there. They surely know how to make a good pizza and they can do a hell of a good job grilling up some scampone.