slkinsey

Really Dirk shouldn't be calling it "anonymity," but rather "having no relationships or contact within the restaurant industry." Because that's what he's really promoting. It strains credulity to believe that any regular restaurant critic is ever substantially anonymous. It does make it look a bit different, though, when it reads: "all other things being equal, having no relationships or contact within the restaurant industry adds to the value of the review for everyone but the critic."

Just repeating this over and over is not going to alter the fact that, all other things being equal, anonymity adds to the value of the review for everyone but the critic. Er. . . neither is your repetition of this assertion.

As a real-life practical matter, I think this is impossible. Even involvement as a food writer, but anonymity as a restaurant reviewer? Put yourself in the shoes of a restaurateur. If "food writer Jerry McAngus" came to eat at your restaurant with several friends four or five times over the course of a few weeks and then never returned, and "restaurant critic Helen Hepplewhite" came out with a review a few weeks later. . . how long do you think it would take you and your colleagues to connect the dots? Given a situation where the writer doesn't write very many reviews and where there is a substantial lag time between the reviewer's visits to a restaurant and the appearance of the review, it might be possible. This would have to be something like a once-monthly review with a two to three month lag time to work for any length of time in a major restaurant city.

Oh, I agree. And that's the way I like them: on their own, icy cold. However, the OP is planning on using this for Margaritas. As a cocktail ingredient I find them too one-note and certainly not worth the trouble and expense versus using Cointreau -- especially since experience tells me that Cointreau is likely to be much better no matter what.

I simply don't believe this is true. Or rather it is only true of a certain kind of review that offers a certain kind of limited information. I believe that there is more and different information to be gained from a deeper level of involvement, and experience tells me that critics who have that deeper level of involvement tend to produce produce more informative reviews. I'm not sure it's accurate or fair to characterize all critic/industry interaction as "schmoozing" either, if you mean it in the pejorative sense of "to chat with someone in order to gain a personal advantage for one's self." As a real-life practical matter, I think this is impossible.

I don't think anyone is arguing that. What people are arguing is that there is a great deal of information to be gained by interacting with chefs and restaurateurs -- information that can inform the work of writers and reviewers and thus enrich what is passed on to readers. What people are further arguing is that these potential gains are lost to the "anonyous" writer or reviewer who maintains no relationships in the industry. And what people are yet further arguing is that many, albeit not all, of the justifications given for anonymity are complete bunk (e.g., that such writers are, in fact, actually anonymous and aren't receiving special treatment anyway). Here in New York we have the clear example that most of the very best criticism and most informative writing has been done by writers like David Rosengarten who are deeply involved in the business and have many relationships in the industry, and further that most of the worst criticism and least informative writing has been done by writers who were not involved in the business and didn't have relationships in the industry. So what people are saying is not that anonymity and good writing are mutually exclusive, but rather that anonymity and involvement with the industry are mutally exclusive and that involvement with the industry is highly coorelated with better, more informative, more informed food writing and criticism.

I have too, but I picked myself up from the sidewalk, wiped off the dirt and grease from my trousers and ate next door. You were lucky. I had to make bail.

At restaurants that know a review is coming, he is probably recognized every time. I doubt that Bruni truly ever had an "anonymous" meal at Perry St, The Modern, or Alto. At Le Bernardin, Daniel, and Jean-Georges, and a few other places of that ilk, he will be recognized instantly. But take another look at the range of places he visits. A fair number of them are non-high-end places that have no particular reason to expect him. . . You don't think that every single restaurant out there that has pretensions of getting a main review in the NY Times (especially if recently opened) doesn't know what Frank Bruni looks like? Maybe have a picture of him, along with other critics and notable food figures on file somewhere? I was in a bar recently when William and Nancy Grimes came in and took a seat at the bar. They were instantly recognized. I also think the kinds of questions one asks, and the kinds of things one orders, etc. will alert the FOH staff of just about any potentially star-rated restaurant (Sripraphai notwithstanding) to take a closer look at certain customers. I've been recognized and received special treatment at some restaurants because I'm on the eGullet Society staff, for Pete's sake. If this is happening to me 15% of the time, I am quite sure it's happening to Frank Bruni 95% of the time.

This is a great sweet-sour drink created by Jerri Banks. This is one drink where the brand of gin makes a big difference. There really is no substitute for Junipero in this one, although Tanqueray might do in a pinch.

You should definitely buy a copy of Charles Baker's The Gentleman's Companion, now reprinted under the title Jigger, Beaker, and Glass : Drinking Around the World. It is one of the great cocktail books of all time, not just for the recipes but also for Baker's inimitable writing style. It's not just a recipe book, but a series of stories involving cocktails. Here is a little taste of Baker's style: As you may well imagine, it does take some adjustment to turn this into a normal cocktail, as the original uses an entire split of Champagne!

Just looking at the menu, a vegetarian could construct a menu like this: Antipasto Three Goat Cheese Truffles with Peperonata Roasted Beet Salad with Ricotta Salata Acorn Squash "Sformato" Neci con Funghi Misti Braised Fennel Salad Pears, Goat Cheese and Cherry Vinaigrette or Baby Red Oak Leaf with Black Olive Blood Orange Citronette Primo Goat Cheese Tortelloni with Dried Orange and Wild Fennel Pollen Garganelli with Funghi Trifolati or Pumpkin "Lune" with Sage and Amaretti Secondo There are no vegetarian secondi (the secondo traditionally being the meat dish). A vegetarian could have a second pasta dish, or perhaps choose several contorni, which are: Roasted Beet Farotto Babbo Greens with Roasted Shallots Rapini with Roasted Garlic Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary Since your fiancée is apparently okay with butter, these should all be possible choices.

My experience has been that making flavored pasta is usually not worth the trouble unless the flavoring agent has a highly concentrated flavor, like a spice. Spinach pasta, for example, is pretty but doesn't particularly taste of spinach. This is especially problematic if you sauce the flavored pasta with anything more than a little butter and cheese, as a flavorful sauce will completely obliterate the subtle flavor of whatever you tried to work into the pasta dough. For something like squash, I think you're better off going for gnocchi.

Pam, what I said was: I personally cannot believe that Keller, et al. are selling this new program to the waitstaff as a cut in total compensation. Indeed, I cannot but believe that they are selling this new program to the waitstaff as an overall long term improvement over the old system -- and, of course, they have data from the French Laundry to back up what they are saying. The fact is that no one really knows whether the servers are going to make substantially more money or substantially less money under the new program. And if there are some servers who are so heavily invested in the "independent contractor" system that the mere fact that the system has changed and they think they might make less money is enough to make them jump ship. . . yea, I think Keller is better off without them and would be happy to see them go. Why? Because they may be excellent servers, but they're not team players. Not for this team anyway. Not if they're not even willing to give it a try. And the fact is that a place like Per Se will be able to attract other excellent servers who are team players and who want to play on that team. Since Per Se has been pooling tips since the day it opened, I have a hard time believing that total compensation will be significantly less under the service charge system. Let's look at the numbers and construct what would be a very bad result under the service charge system. Let us suppose a server is bringing in $75,000 a year at Per Se under the tip pooling system. Let us further suppose that total compensation goes down by five percent under the service charge system. These numbers should both be on the high side. So, with a 5% decrease in total compensation, the server would make $3,750 less on a yearly basis. Not an insignificant amount of money, but $5,937 a month instead of $6,250 shouldn't put too many of them in the poorhouse -- and it is a worst case scenario.

Two thoughts on this: 1. Knowing of a few servers who quit and hearing from these same disgruntled servers of more doesn't exactly constitute convincing evidence that there has been a wholesale or statistically meaningful exodus of talent from Per Se's FOH -- or, indeed, whether this turnover is meaningfully different from their usual tunover. 2. Were I in Keller's shoes and some servers quit because they had a hunch that their wages might be less over a year, I'd be glad to see them go.

Who says "so many FOH staff has recently quit?" I would also be interested to know if it is a mathematical fact that total compensation will be lower under the new system when averaged over, say, a year.

From this post in the making Limoncello thread: I have always found zest infusions of the 'cello variety (both commercial and homemade) fun and nice, but ultimately very one dimensional compared to something like Cointreau. I've mixed a few drinks with high quality commercial arancello, and they all turned out no better than I could have done with cheap triple sec.

Why should we assume the servers at Per Se will be taking a pay cut at all? Or, if they are, that it will be more than one or two percent? Besides, it has been a fairly standard practice for some time in good American restaurants to add a set service charge for parties of 6 or more.

Interesting. "Chief" is a title in the Navy that accompanies the highest noncommissioned officer ranks (e.g., "Chief Petty Officer," "Senior Chief Petty Officer," etc.), and it is common for people with this rank to be called simply "Chief." For this reason, "Chief" is often used by people who have been in the Navy or Coast Guard as an informal general-purpose honorific (sort of like a way of saying "sir" without the "you're my superior officer" vibe). My Grandfather, a career Navy officer and 1918 graduate of Annapolis, had colleagues who continued to call him "boss" informally, even after they had advanced to a higher rank than his. Not sure what this meandering contributes to the dialogue, but mention it anyway.

Yes! As much as I have enjoyed all the Ti Punches, Rum Swizzles and Gin Fizzes of the summer, I am looking forward to heavier, darker liquors when the weather cools down. Most likely I'll be picking up my Laird's 100 proof Bonded Applejack obsession at that time. My main success with this spirit has been with an old fashioned cocktail of nothing more than 2 ounces Laird's bonded, 1 teaspoon rich demerara syrup and two dashes of Fee's aromatic bitters, stirred, strained and garnished with a fat twist. But I really want to experiment with this and find some more good drinks with Laird's bonded. Muddling in some cranberry might be a cool direction to explore. I tried making a cranberry champagne cocktail to start my over the top Thanksgiving dinner last year (Cava, cranberry puree and a sugar cube soaked in orange bitters). It turned out okay, but I had some trouble with the cranberry puree I made being a little to cohesive due to the pectin and therefore not diffusing into the drink as well as I might have liked. Looked like this:

Sounds like you're talking about Bonefish Grill. Chain? Kind of like a fish version of Outback Steakhouse? These guys?

I guess I was thinking of the size/shape of the burger rather than the cooking style. The burgers ar Shake Shack and the burger joint at Le Parker Meridien have more or less the same diameter and thickness. The burger joint is able to achieve a char with a medium rare inside most likely because heat transfer by radiation (grilling or broiling) is much less efficient than by conduction (frying). On the other hand, I find that grilled burgers tend to have more of a "burnt" quality to the char rather than that "maillardized beef drippings" flavor the best fried burgers have. This likely contributes to the overall beefier flavor of the burgers at Shake Shack, although I think Shake Shack is probably also using better beef, a better mix of beef cuts and a fresher grind. I'm not sure there is any "official" name. I don't recall seeing any signage to that effect there (although I may not be remembering correctly), and Le Parker Meridien's web site doesn't give it a name either -- although they do name the other associated restaurants (Seppi's and Norma's).

This is a discussion for another thread, but the sad fact is that 95% of bartenders couldn't make you a Negroni if you pointed a gun at their heads. Because 95% of bartenders are there to serve beer, shots and the occasional highball.

Although no more so than "guv'nor" I suppose.

"Oi! Squire!" is likely to get the ass-kicking kind of attention in any number of bars on this side of the pond.

This is actually an interesting question. Back in the day, the bartender or tavern owner was likely to be one of the most respected men in town. Top bartenders like Jerry Thomas were celebrities. Then Prohibition happened; then the highball era began post-Prohidition; then youth rebellion in the 1960s caused several generations of young people to reject cocktails in the 1960s and 70s, and with the rise of drug culture alcohol came to be valued more for its intoxicating qualities than its gustatory gualities; etc. By the end of that cycle, the title "bartender" came to be associated with a relatively untalented old guy who pushed cheap beer and shots of watered down booze across a bar. The overall image of a bartender is still more or less the same, except that it now also includes relatively untalented but copiously endowed and scantily clad young women and men pushing expensive beer, overpriced "superpremium" vodka and the occasional sugary concoction. A long fall from the Jerry Thomas days. So I can understand why a true craftsman (craftsperson?) in the cocktails area wouldn't want to be associated with the modern day image of "bartender." And, of course, there is a huge difference between the people shaking drinks at bars like Pegu Club, Milk & Honey and Flatiron Lounge and the people pouring beer and shots at the local bar or, worse yet, serving premix Margaritas at the local Bennigan's. On the other hand, I can also understand how someone with a real appreciation for cocktail history and an understanding of the proud provenance of "bartender" (which includes just about everyone at the aforementioned establishments) might prefer to stick with the old title. Another interesting question is what to call people like Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders, Julie Reiner, Dave Wondrich, Sasha Petraske, et al. -- people who design cocktails and cocktail lists, but who don't tend to do so much shaking behind the bar any more? If the men and women shaking drinks every day are like the "line cooks" and "sous chefs" of the cocktail world, Julie, Sasha and company are like "executive chefs." I suppose the best comparison to the culinary world might be with a sushi bar like Sushi Yasuda, where Yasuda-san is the head guy who determines the style and oversees the other sushi chefs, but the various sushi chefs at Sushi Yasuda interact directly with the customers and may make some adjustments/creations tailored to a specific customer or based on a request. For me, I'm not fond of "bar chef." I like "bartender" and sometimes "mixologist."