docsconz

Check out my reports from Sept./Oct of 2005. Actually some quite excellent innovative food can be found in and around Cape Town, a marvelous city. This recent article from the New York Times should give you some places to try in Cape Town. Bruce Robertson is a very talented chef doing very good things with fusion. I very much enjoyed my meal at One.Waterfront when he was there. Pinotage is the local grape, but not necessarily the best example of what South Africa can produce as far as wine. It does tend to be a good value though. I particularly enjoyed the wines of Boekenhoutskloof (sp?) and Vergelegen. Many different kinds of meat are indeed available and most are farm raised. During a conversation with a chef in Cape Town he was lamenting that most of the best produce and seafood tends to be exported. As for safety, I never felt uncomfortable in or around Cape Town, but then I didn't visit the most risky areas. My impression is that safety is no worse than any other major city and probably better than many. I cannot attest to Johannesburg though. I look forward to reading your continuing impressions and discoveries.

If I'm in Mexico City, I will eat Mexican in all the forms of it that I can find and will avoid French unless it has a particularly Mexican touch that I can't find elsewhere - but then I don't live there. You can bet that if I did, I would eat whatever was good whatever the influence. Elizabeth, thanks for your report and the links to your blog. I did not have the chance to experience Aguila y Sol for myself, but I concur with your view of Pujol.

I just returned from an excellent trip to Peru, on which I will be posting when I can. I found mate de coca or coca tea to be quite helpful with the altitude of Cusco and Lake Titicaca and quite a delicious tea in its own right. Though I unfortunately didn't get to Astrid y Gaston in Lima due to a scheduling snafu, I did have a delicious Coca Pisco Sour at Huaca Pucllana yesterday during lunch.

I know that you have been to WD-50 and were less than excited as you are with Alinea. One possibility is to give WD-50 a second chance, however, I will add three restaurants that I haven't yet been to that intrigue me: Degustation Devi Aquavit. Of the ones mentioned, the one I most wish to try that I have yet to is L'Atelier, although I will likely try it in Vegas before I do it in NYC. Masa is very high on my to-do list, though the cost is a little daunting.

Sorry, I didn't ask.

Elliot, This is simply stunning and allows me to say that this is one restaurant I will not miss on my next trip to Vegas!

I was down in Latham today getting my car serviced and being there around lunchtime, I thought I would give this restaurant another chance. I'm glad I did. They have an excellent lunch buffet at a very reasonable $9. The restaurant was busy enough that everything remained fresh. I ordinarily am not a big fan of buffet's but this one had good variety and reasonable quality (for the price point) with freshness maintained. Particular standouts to me were the vegetable pakoras - amongst the best I have ever had - and the fresh from the oven naan that was brought to the table. Of note is that a computer printout of Owen's eGullet Society report was posted prominently by the entrance to the restaurant. So while my previous dinner experience left something to be desired, I thought the lunch buffet was an excellent value and one which I would happily devour again either in Latham or the upcoming Saratoga branch.

I would imagine that that price at the Almadraba includes meals - at least one of which you obviously won't need. The Almadraba is a very nice hotel and quite possibly the nicest in the area. I would suggest seeing if you can get a room price without meals. The food is not bad, but you have some pretty good options in the area. When we stayed there it was convenient to include the meals as we had children with us who did not attend most of our dining events.

The icing on the cake on what had already been a great meal at Susur in Toronto was when Susur came out of the kitchen to say hello to someone he knew, he and I caught eyes and he came over to our table. Our then 13 year old son was with us, enjoying every bit of his meal. He enjoyed it all the more after Susur gave him suggestions on how to approach the particular dish he was eating and invited us into the kitchen. I appreciate the opportunity to thank the chef and by extension his staff for an excellent meal.

I think that for conditions to be ideal the tasting should be conducted closer to the source. Anywhere requiring air transport is clearly impractical. Given that I am located between the Hudson Valley and Quebec, that would probably be as close as any place practical. In the interest of science I would offer my humble abode.

It's good business when the food is good and the chef is genuine. I agree though that if the food is less than excellent the whole experience can be uncomfortable at best. Sometimes I have difficulty refraining from honest feedback. It is meant to be constructive, though I'm not sure that it has always been taken so.

I don't follow Platt enough to have an idea of what his stars really mean, but I thought the review itself was fair to the restaurant.

Now this is an interesting idea. Sounds like they could do a tv show based on this!

Seriously Doc.....if you were eating the Whole foods steak and drinking a Richebourg,Sassicaia or Vega Sicilia-Unico, it still would have sucked. ← Wow, that must have really been pretty bad!

Mole waffles

Another thought from someone who wished he could have been there himself: Obviously the point of doing a blind tasting is to find out what is best. I wonder how each of these would have fared in terms of simple "everyday" enjoyment without the direct comparison - even the "losers."

I'd love to do this comparison too... As you said, though, Americans prefer the grain-fed stuff, and one of the lessons of this tasting is that it's a little difficult to get even that at a really high quality level. I haven't the faintest idea where to get a top quality grass-fed steak in the US. But if you know of a source, please share! ← I can get good grass-fed beef locally where I live, but it isn't aged. That would have to be done separately. In addition, there is a ranch in Colorado that is particularly known for its grass-fed beef - they were awarded a Slow Food award in the Defense of Biodiversity" in Naples back in 2003. Unfortunately, I can't think of the name of the ranch. They do sell their beeff on-line, although I do not know if it is aged. Then again, I do not know if grass-fed beef even should be aged.

While I haven't opened a restaurant, I wouldn't say that opening a doctor's office is any less complex than opening a restaurant. In many respects I would say just the reverse, which, Holly, your quip supports. The investment in opening a doctor's office is quite considerable depending on the type of practice. In addition, ther is just as much of a getting comfortable learning curve if not more than with a restaurant. I think the analogy is an interesting one and gfwebs point is a good one. In either case, it is to be expected that certain elements may not go as smoothly as with a more mature operation (e.g. wait times may be increased, maybe some flaws in how things are put together, etc.), but the basic attitudes and talents underlying still need to shine through.

My understanding (this may be wrong!) is that it's difficult if not impossible to get substantial marbling, even what would be required just for USDA Prime, with solely grass-fed beef. And also that, because of the lower fat content of grass-fed beef, it can't be dry aged for very long. So I think that most if not all of the steaks in the tasting were grain-fed. I've never had top-quality grass-fed beef, but my understanding is that it's just a completely different thing from the sort of steaks that were in the tasting and from "steakhouse steak" as we know it. ← This is what I suspected, although I wonder if the Whole Foods steak may not have been grass-fed. It is because of this alleged difference that I would be particularly interested in a direct comparison.

Another question- were the meats distinguished by feed (i.e. grain-fed vs. grass-fed)? I would personally be curious to see the results along those lines. Indeed, were any of the steaks grass-fed? In the U.S. there appears to be a marked predilection for grain-fed beef, but some of the most legendary beef in the world such as that from Argentina is primarily grass-fed.

Wow, this is food porn at its most prurient! One thought- Though the strip comes from the porterhouse, comparing a strip directly to a porterhouse or a filet to that from a porterhouse is not exactly comparing like samples. There is a potentially significant variable as the porterhouse is cooked bone-in while its offspring are not. The bone conceivably adds more than a little flavor to its surrounding protein. One observation - these steaks are all supposed to be dry-aged for a significant period of time, yet only a few look dry-aged (i.e. have that color darker than bright red). The Wolf's Neck Rib-eye appears to me to have the look of wet-aging.

Jonny, Thanks for your excellent post! Most of the places that you mentioned are unfamiliar to me, but all the more interesting because of that. The Boqueria may or may not be the best market for daily shopping, but it is one of my very favorite places in the world. It's energy, beauty and tradition are simply wonderful. I look forward to more of your impressions of this incredible city and elsewhere.

← I wonder if the following passage from the article is a portent of the 2007 season at El Bulli?

dont forget about grupo tragaluz,they have done and are doing a lot to put barcelona on gastronomy worldmap. ← I'll bite. I'm familiar with the Hotel Omm and Moo, but outside of that, what actually have they done "to put Barcelona on the gastronomy world map?" I thought it was there already.

I had an extremely enjoyable meal at Abac and Sant Pau. Cinc Sentits was very good, but I was too full after an extraordinary lunch at Sant Pau to really enjoy it. Haven't been to the others that you mentioned. I will be back this spring myself, but with only very limited time actually within Barcelona. I am inclined to visit Can Gaig or one other newer Tapas places (Tapas24 or Inopia).