slkinsey

I've had the opportunity to try Lucid a few times. Not particularly impressed. I felt like it had a certain dominant "dried mushroom" aroma component that I did not particularly appreciate.

IMO, if people are shaking all-spirit drinks like Martinis and Manhattans, this is a sign of one of three things (or a combination): 1. Either they can't be bothered to take the extra time to stir; 2. just like the bartenders who don't bother using any vermouth in a vodka Martini, experience has shown them that most of the customers in their demographic prefer all their cocktails shaken (for many, shaking -- along with the "V glass" -- is part of the image that attracts them to "cocktails"); or 3. they don't know the difference, and probably don't care.

Well, cashew fruit gives an indelible dye without any processing other than, I suppose, juicing. Fresh turmeric can be simply pounded with a mortar and pestle to give a yellow dye. Anyway, so what if there's "processing"? Any type of cooking is also "processing," in that case, isn't it? The point is that, if you juice a cashew fruit and use the juice as a coloring agent you also get cashew fruit juice flavor, etc. If you only want the color, you must take more intensive steps. The end result is that you end up with something "artificial" because you have extracted and refined the coloring agent. Is there any difference between a coloring agent extracted from cashew fruit and a coloring agent with the same molecular composition made by chemical synthesis? I agree that processing isn't always a big deal. But, then again, I also think that making something out of "chemicals" (as if everything weren't made out of chemicals anyway) isn't always a big deal either.

I've never seen the MB orange curaçao at Warehouse -- and I look for it every time I'm there.

Right. And the reasons seem simple enough: First and foremost is the terrible economic situation. This means that residents have less money to spend on restaurant eating and there are fewer business visitors. Related but not entirely consequent to the first reason is the decimation of the city and largescale flight of the middle and upper classes from the city to outer suburbs, exurbs and even nearby cities. This, combined with the economics and lifestyle that go along with suburban living, makes it difficult for there to be any kind of critical mass and density necessary for a vibrant culinary scene -- all the moreso due to the fact that many metro-Detroit suburban and exurban dwellers don't even commute to the city for work. The economic and infrastructural collapse of the city has made it even more undesirable to business travelers who might be dining out on the company dime. The two elements above have contributed to a situation where it would appear, based on the reports of metro-Detroit dwellers as well as the evidence of metro-Detroit restaurant menus, that there isn't much of a restaurant culture in metro-Detroit. This means both that the residents do not in general prioritize access to great restaurants in their lifestyles, nor do they have the same basis for understanding what constitites a great restaurant compared to the average citizens of, say, Chicago. This is, of course, not reflective of metro-Detroit eGulleters in general. But that level of interest in food and restaurant culture seems rare in Detroit whereas it seems fairly common for, say, people who live in New Orleans or San Francisco or New York. Finally, it's not clear to me that Detroit has any built-in culinary specialties or attractions (e.g., pizza, cheese-steak, seafood, Cajun and Creole cooking, German and Polish cooking, barbecue, Tex-Mex and Southwestern, etc.) that would at least potentially make the city an attractive one-trick pony and eventually help it grow a vibrant restaurant culture and turn into a great restaurant city and culinary destination.

I'll accept that it's probably an okay fish & chips joint, but it doesn't sound as though places like it are likely to cement Detroit's "restaurant city" reputation. Anyway... the highest rated restaurant on Gayot for Detroit is Tribute, with 16/20. After that are Coach Insignia, The Grill Room, Hong Hua, Il Posto and The Lark at 15/20. In contrast, NYC has 15 restaurants rated higher than any restaurant in Detroit; Philadelphia has 3; Chicago has 7; San Francisco has 6; Seattle has 1. They all have comparably (and increasingly) larger numbers of restaurants in the other higher ranked categories.

I certainly would not call Detroit a "great restaurant city". But having said that, Detroit is very different in an important respect from most of the other cities that have been thrown around: there has been a flight of wealth out of Detroit proper and into the suburbs to a much greater extent than in most other cities. Thus, if/when greater demand for higher-end restaurants develops in Detroit, I'd predict that a greater fraction of the leading restaurants will be in suburbs. Unfortunately, those are exactly some of the factors working against Detroit becoming a great restaurant city. Never mind that you need people who go out to good restaurants and have an interest in good restaurants. You need people who can afford good restaurants. You need people who go out to restaurants for business (necessitating successful business economics), who are going to want conveniently nearby restaurants. Etc, etc, etc. But you also need to have some basis for creating excitement, creating buzz, creating a vibrant restaurant culture for the city. I don't see how that can happen when restaurants are spread around the outskirts of a 2,000 square mile tri-county area. It's also generally the case that suburban residents have kids, a family life including activities such as soccer practice and church choir rehearsal, a home with a mortgage and yard work that needs doing, a middle-income job and all those things. They're generally willing to trade restaurant greatness for convenience, big portions at reasonable prices and kid-friendly rooms. I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with any of these things (I grew up in a suburb of Boston and wouldn't trade that for anything). But these aren't exactly things that lend themselves to a vibrant culture of exciting, high-quality restaurants. Rather, these things tend to go along with higher incomes (including expense accounts) and childless people with disposable income. Not for nothing do great restaurants, bars, coffee houses and bookstores (etc) tend to spring up where middle class gays and lesbians set down roots in any density. I think it's interesting to notice the difference between what Rattlesnake is doing in Detroit and what Rattlesnake is doing in Palm Springs. The cooking at the California location (granted, it appears to be a special menu) is substantially more sophisticated. More to the point, the Detroit menu doesn't seem all that much more special than what they're doing at Henry's, my neighborhood local (which is a great place, but I wouldn't drive an hour to go there and it's by no means in the top 100 for NYC).

Huh? By the definition you're stating here, if a city has great restaurants in the suburbs, then it automatically is NOT a "great restaurant city". And I couldn't disagree more. People in many suburbs of Chicago can find great restaurant experiences in the suburbs, where there are quite a few R4 good restaurants. (Sure, many go into the city too, but many others don't.) We have some world-class restaurants in our suburbs, and have for a long time, going back at least to when Jean Banchet first opened Le Francais in Wheeling in the early 1970s. I should have qualified that by saying "in general." Of course many of these places have great restaurants that are in outer areas. But the point is that these are not the restaurant that made these places "great restaurant cities." Chicago didn't need Le Français to be a great restaurant city, and San Francisco certainly doesn't need The French Laundry to be a great restaurant city. Rather, these are icing on the cake. So, while people in many of these areas perhaps don't have to go into the city for a great restaurant experience, in the large part that is what they usually do because that is where most of the best restaurants are located. I would argue that, for any great restaurant city, one could exclude all of the suburban and exurban restaurants from consideration and the city would still be considered a "great restaurant city." On the other hand, I can think of no great restaurant city that could be considered such on the merits of its suburban and exurban restaurants alone, excluding the restaurants in the city. I realize that some Detroiters are making that argument here, but I have yet to see so much as a handful of examples of "really great restaurants" in the greater Detroit area (are menus like this and this really among the best metro Detroit has to offer?). But, let's say for the sake of argument that there are 20 "really great restaurants" in the Detroit suburbs. That's just not enough for 2,000 square miles. And, again, it's thus far not been made clear by anyone that any of the restaurants there are so great that they inspire excitement beyond the level of a "good but not inspiring" restaurant at an acknowledged great restaurant city. I'm curious: What are the 20 best restaurants in metro Detroit? Or, better yet, what are 20 restaurants that can compete with the restaurants from great restaurant cities like NYC, SF, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. Can someone provide a representative list with links to menus? There are, of course, other ways I suppose a city can qualify for "restaurant attraction" status. Primary among them would be having a reasonable number of outstanding restaurants serving food in a particular regional style that is not available at similar quality (or perhaps at all) in other places in the country. Some of the barbecue cities in the US might qualify under that definition -- which is to say that one would be excited to be there just for the food. But I'm still not sure that makes them "great restaurant cities" as opposed to regional attractions or one-trick-ponies.

That's ridiculous; of course it is! Heck, Stamford and Greenwich and much of Fairfield County are suburbs of New York, towns in which large numbers of commuters drive or take the train into the city every day. There is a difference between a commuter town and a suburb. One might call suburbs "residential areas on the outskirts of, and contiguous to a city or large town." If they weren't officially part of NYC, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island could be considered "suburbs of Manhattan." A classic suburb, in my opinion, would be one that is largely dependent on the city which it "subs" for most things other than residential space, grocery stores and the like. It shouldn't take an hour on the train to get from a "sub" to an "urb" to work at your job or go to a restaurant. If it does, you're in a commuter town. Au contraire. If you live in a "great restaurant city" I would argue that it absolutelyis unusual for someone to need to travel 35-40 minutes if they want to try an R4 restaurant. The issue is one of density, as I said before. If you have to expand your area to more than 2,000 square miles to not even equal the number of great restaurants in cities less than 1/4 the size, you're not a "great restaurant city." Heck, if we applied those same criteria to New York, we'd have all the way to Newark (which is, by the way, not a suburb of NYC) or even Philadelphia and New Haven (also not suburbs of NYC). Take a moment and consider all the cities I listed in my previous post. Most of them have more great restaurants than all of Michigan, never mind just metro Detroit, and their best restaurants are better than the most of the best Michigan has to offer. This is to say that at best one might consider the Detroit–Warren–Livonia Metropolitan Statistical Area an "okay restaurant MSA." But that's a long way away from "great restaurant city." But Lockport and Gurnee are not, in fact, parts of Chicago. And Chicago's status as a great restaurant city does not rely upon stretching the concept of "city" to include them. Here's the thing: If a city is going to be a "great restaurant city" then that means that the people from the suburbs who are in search of a great restaurant experience go into the city to have that experience. If they have to take the highway all the way around to the ass end of nowhere on the other side of the city to find a great restaurant, I say that place is disqualified from being a great restaurant city. Especially since a place so described is unlikely to have a sufficient number of good restaurants, and certainly good restaurants of which most anyone would be reasonable aware, for one to say: "Great! We're going to [name of city]! They have awesome food and great restaurants there!"

You can't have as much meat in the pan compared to a frypan, because the taller sides inhibit evaporation. But so long as you don't overcrowd the pan, they work just fine. As you have observed, due to the shape, an 11-inch curved sauteuse evasee has a smaller cooking surface than an 11-inch frypan or saute pan.

the metro detroit area covers 3 counties, not just wayne. it is hard to define what's detroit and what's not becuase the suburbs keep going and going and going, in some cases until you hit another city (ann arbor, flint, saginaw) That goes directly to my last point. Ann Arbor is not a suburb of Detroit. No place that is an hour's drive away is a suburb. It takes longer to get from Detroit to Ann Arbor than it takes to get from NYC to Rye, New York. And you know what? Rye is not a suburb of NYC. The reason I made my "comparable list of 50" from NYC is that density is also important. Are there as many outstanding restaurants in the whole state of Michigan as there are in New Orleans? Well... no, actually, there aren't. Bad example. But the point is that Detroit can't be a "great restaurant city" if you have to expand your area of consideration to 2,000 square miles in order to fit in a reasonable number of good restaurants. Especially when you consider that, for example, a good restaurant city like Philadelphia has a larger number of great places to eat in only 369 square miles. Phoenix is 515 square miles. Los Angeles is 498 square miles. New Orleans is something like 350 square miles. Chicago is 234 square miles. Madison is 219 square miles. Portland is 145 square miles. Seattle is 142 square miles. Las Vegas is 131 square miles. DC is 68 square miles. Miami is 55 square miles. San Francisco is 47 square miles. Manhattan is 23 square miles. Density matters. I hate to join in the piling on, but are you seriously suggesting that this menu at Traffic Jam & Snug or this menu from Andiamo West even remotely begins to stand up to this menu from Blue Hill, this menu from Babbo, both in NYC, or this menu from Charlie Trotter's in Chicago? It's hard to know how to respond to that, except to say that if that's Detroit's idea of a first-rate restaurant that would make Detroit a "restaurant city" then it's little wonder that it doesn't have that reputation.

Just found 4 bottles of Malacca. May have a line on a full case. <rubs hands together and chuckles evilly>

I don't think your views are in the minority as to the criteria (although I do think most people feel like there has to be a sufficient number and density of good restaurants). I do think your views are in the minority as to whether Detroit has really, really, really, really, really good restaurants.

The answer is yes, and you answered the question yourself: two great examples are Houston and Los Angeles. I am more familiar with Houston, so I'll use that as an example. There really isn't much of a "dense inner core" to Houston. To someone who is used to pre-automobile East coast cities, it all seems like a gigantic suburb of various densities. Houston covers 600 square miles. Considering that all of Wayne County covers 672 square miles, it's hard to argue that Detroit has "more spread out suburban areas" than Houston (I would argue, rather, that if they become any further spread out than Houston is, they're no longer "suburbs"). Houston's mass transit is largely a joke -- you need a car to get around in Houston. As for the "list of 50" -- I think it says something that one has to go that far afield (Ann Arbor?!) to compose such a list. Here is an off-the cuff list of Gramercy/Murray Hill restaurants. All are within walking distance of each other. 15 East A Voce Artisanal Asia de Cuba Asia Sushi and Hibachi Barbounia Benjamin Steakhouse Beppe BLT Prime Blue Smoke Blue Water Grill Bocca Bolo Casa Mono Cinque Terre Country Craft Craftbar Devi Domenico's Eleven Madison Park Fleur de Sel Gramercy Tavern I Trulli Japonais La Carne Grill La Pizza Fresca Les Halles L'Impero Lucy Latin Kitchen Park Bistro Pera Porcao Churrascaria Pure Food and Wine Rosa Mexicano Rossini's Silverleaf Tavern SushiSamba Tabla Tamarind The Garden Cafe The Water Club Tocqueville Union Square Cafe Urena Veritas Wild Salmon Wolfgang's Steakhouse Zana Restaurant Zereoue This is a good example of why NYC is a restaurant city and Detroit isn't.

If it's maraschino, the liquid should be clear. Click here to see Maraska's packaging for their maraschino.

"Mixologist" is just a word to describe a bartender who is experienced and skilled in making cocktails, as opposed to the more common "beer, shots and the occasional G&T" bartender. Some people in the business like the word, some don't. It all depends on what you consider "creative" and "orginal." Is there anything strikingly original about Alain Ducasse's work? I would argue that the creative output of people like Audrey Saunders and Dale DeGroff is every bit as original as Alain Ducasse. As for whether they're returning to the classics, that's a more nuanced issue. If by "returning to the classics" you're suggesting that they're simply repeating drinks invented by someone else and found in a dusty old tome, you are not correct. Of course they are familiar with the history and the tradition, and many of the drinks they make may be classics, but even a brief glance at the cocktail menus of leading NYC bars demonstrates that they are continuing to grow the craft and create new cocktails. If by "returning to the classics" you mean that they are returning to the classic tradition of crafting a cocktail rather than continuing the newer path of "3 fruit-flavored vodkas shaken up with 4 different fruit-flavored liqueurs, two different citrus juices and the ubiquitous splashes of cranberry juice and sour mix" mixology, then I would agree. Seriously, that is a ridiculous statement. A "chef" is simply the boss of a professional kitchen. Once you run a professional kitchen, you're a chef. Basta. The guy who runs the kitchen at The Modern is a chef... so is the guy who runs the kitchen at Carmine's. And plenty of people attain that "title" at a relatively young age and after relatively few years of experience. Returning to Alain Ducasse again, as good an example as any, he begain in the culinary field in 1972 and had his first "chef" gig in 1980. So, after 8 years and at the tender age of 24, Alain Ducasse was a "chef." Four years later (for a total of only 12 years in the business) he was awarded 2 Michelin stars. A good example of a young up-and-coming cocktail designer would be Phil Ward, currently head bartender at Death & Co. Phil takes his craft very seriously. I'm not sure how long he's been bartending, but it's got to be at least 8 years. Since I've known him he's worked several years at Flatiron Lounge with Julie Reiner and around a year and a half at Pegu Club with Audrey Saunders, learning and growing with people at the very top of the cocktails world today. If he continues to improve and grow and explore his options, there's no reason he shouldn't have his own place and be considered one of the elite figures in the cocktails world by the time he's put in 12 years. I think people are having a difficult time believing that you got a drink with too much bitters, especially for the bitters aficionado you claim to be, for several reasons: First, knowing the skill and expertise of the PDT bartenders this seems unlikely, especially considering that none of their drinks call for more than two dashes. Second, it is possible that a drink with the proper amount of bitters had too much bitters for your taste. Third, there isn't much to suggest that you have a level of cocktail expertise which enables you to distinguish between "too much bitters for me" and "too much bitters for this drink" (especially considering your original estimation of "probably 10 shakes" of bitters). Notwithstanding the foregoing, of course it isn't impossible that your drink had too much bitters in it. That's not the point. It would be interesting to know what cocktail you had. Some cocktails are supposed to be bitter. PDT has an Aperol cocktail on the menu, for example, and it would be silly to order, say, a "Death in the Gulf Stream" and complain that it had too much bitters in it. Considering that you can remember that the cocktail had fruit juice and a spirit, and considering that you remember the drink well enough to know that it had "too much bitters," it seems like you ought to be able to remember enough details about the drink (what kind of spirit, what kind of fruit juice, what kind of glass, etc.) for us to get a reasonably good idea of what drink you were having.

Naftal, I'm not sure I buy your arguments either that Detriot is unique in being tied to automobile travel and that this is a primary cause of its current and historical culinary doldrums. There are plenty of cities that are dispersed across an equally large or larger acerage and which have equally ineffectual public transportation (I would argue that there is no such thing as a post-automobile-age low-density/high-area city with effective mass transportation) and which nevertheless have good restaurants and culinary culture -- Houston comes immediately to mind.

NYC, where our alchemical friend cut his cocktailian teeth, is one of the epicenters of the cocktail revival movement. "Serious cocktail places" in NYC are the likes of Pegu Club, Flatiron Lounge, Milk & Honey, Death & Co. -- establishments that are considered among the best in the world among the cocktailian set. It remains to be seen whether The Violet Hour will compete on this level, but I have a hard time believing that The Matchbox, The Green Mill and various Chicago restaurant bars are competing on this level of "serious."

Phil, with all due respect, I think the record shows that you're not exactly a cocktail expert and sometimes make grand statements for effect. I point this out not as a gratuitous slam, but to contextualize your remarks for others who may be reading along. Most likely the drink you had was a Pisco Sour, which is currently on the PDT menu. This is comprised of pisco (a kind of Peruvian or Chilean white brandy), lemon juice (or lime juice, or a combination), sugar and egg white. It is traditional to add an "aromatic garnish" on top of the egg white foam after the drink is strained into the glass. This occasionally means finely grating cinnamon or nutmeg on top, but more commonly means tipping in several drops (not dashes) of Angostura bitters. These drops are often swirled with a cocktail pick for decorative purposes, like this. I've had a Pisco Sour at PDT, and it is garnished with 4-5 drops of Anostura bitters in the foam. This can look like a lot of bitters, but in actuality amounts to less than two full dashes. You assuredly did not have a drink with ten dashes of bitters at PDT, as such a drink would be almost undrinkably bitter. Most pisco appropriate for use in cocktails is quite mild in flavor. In addition, PDT uses lemon juice in their Pisco Sour. Lemon juice can often be observed to quietly make its contribution to a cocktail and blend into the background rather than broadcasting its presence up front as is often the case with lime juice. If you were unable to distinguish separate, distinct and unblended flavors of spirit and fruit in PDT's Pisco Sour, and if the aromatic garnish of Angostura bitters found its way into your sensorium as you drank, adding to the overall impression of the libation... these things are a sign that the cocktail was properly, perhaps flawlessly executed -- not, as you suggest, that the staff at PDT are "ambitious imitators." As I think I suggested back in the Pegu Club thread around a year ago, just like with sushi, wine, haute cuisine, literature, opera, ballet, fashion, etc... cocktails prepared in the classic tradition can be immediately enjoyable, but one would like to have accumulated a certain amount of knowledge before suggesting that the emperor's outfit might be a little revealing. Edited to add: Well, the "Fitty-Fitty" at Pegu Club is a Martini as well. The "Astoria" part might be to evoke the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel (as in a "Hoffman House Martini"), and the "Bianco" part refers to the use of Martini & Rossi Bianco vermouth instead of the standard French/dry/white vermouth. M&R Bianco is a sweet white vermouth, with vanilla notes.

The point I think Nathan is making here is that, yes, some processing is needed if you want, say, the red coloring from beets but not beet flavor and other potentially undesirable things that come along with using beets. If you happen to get a red color because you use beets (or turmeric or whatever), then they aren't "coloring agents," they're ingredients.

I often see it at Union Square Wines & Spirits, but that's about it.

Some little known "facts" about saskatoon berries:

People have been known to go into anaphylactic shock and even die from eating honey.

If you're at a dancing place and want a drink at right around the price everyone else is paying, just get a whiskey on the rocks (with a splash of soda if you prefer, and a dash of bitters if it looks like they might have some).

It's a bit of a semantic argument, I think. A color is a color. It can't be artificial. Red is red. There is no such thing as "artificial red." What there can be is "artificial red coloring" ("artificial" meaning "contrived by art rather than nature"). Of course, there are plenty of "natural" coloring agents that are produced from a fairly intensive refinement process that may strike some as "artificial" (such as cochineal, the red coloring in Campari, which is derived from beetles).