Bux

I suspect everyone has reached the conclusion that as much as anonymity might be a negative factor in some threads, it's not a simple issue. I'm proud of what I write and will stand behind each post, and I'll change my mind in public or admit I was wrong in public, if necessary. I've had discussions with media people--culinary journalists and the like--and there's just about unanimous agreement that anyone who writes under their own name professionally, should post under that same name. It's not the same for those who work in the restaurant industry, and especially not the same for those employed by others who have reason to worry that what's posted by an employee of the restaurant may be taken as the opinion of the restaurant. I also know of at least one front of the house person, whose identity became known. To his embarrassment, members began insisting he serve their table and it became a problem for the restaurant. I suspect that's at least part of the reason I no longer see his name online as much. The stalking problem isn't common, but if you've ever met or communicated with someone who's been stalked, it may not make you want to play the odds. A couple of people I know on the site have asked me to do one thing or another related to an attempt someone's made to stalk them. Stalkers are weird. It would be beyond me to explain the "why" for the actions I hear about. So far, none of my friends or aquaintances have suffered physical harm or even been threaten with harm, but the actions of the stalkers are so bizarre, that one shouldn't presume any second guessing. So there's a safety mechanism in allowing members to use an alias and even the strongest voices in favor of real names probably understand that much. At best, we get to hear good information and reliable opinions from anonymous members. At worst we get to read partisan posts from those we may, or may not, suspect of being shills for a restaurant, product or cause. The latter is the public downside to an anonymous post. The downside to the anonymous poster is that his, or her, post arrives more suspiciously in the forum. Most people here know that I have some friends in the restaurant world in NY and when I rave about a restaurant they may wonder if my opinion is swayed by my friendship, or if it's just that I get better service when I eat at a restaurant where I'm known. That's all fair and those questions wouldn't offend me. Eventually, even new comers will get to know my integrity quotient from the volume of posts I've made. My guess is that any recent member who posts strongly in any threat is going to be met with some suspicion and that the suspicion increases when the new poster is anonymous. Whether that new poster has a legiitimate need for anonymity or merely choses it to post maliciously, his early posts will be met with some skepticism by many. It's the member's choice I guess to trade credibility for anonymity. The credibility of any post should be taken in context on a public board. Whether or not there's a value in having members point out why they feel one post is credible and another not, is a good question and it too probably relies on the context.

Sorry to focus on such a small and less important aspect of your post, but it seems to me that there are tasting menus, which are generally as expensive and often more expensive meals than ordering a la carte, and there are prix fixe menus, which are less expensive than ordering from the carte. I don't think of those prix fixe menus, which often allow one to have four courses for less than three courses from the carte as either menus degustations or tasting menus.

My first visit to Florence was as a student in the summer of 1959 or so. I was back with Mrs. B on a delayed, but extended honeymoon in the fall of 1964. We were back again in the early nineties in prime time--Easter week, but nothing prepared me for the hordes that tour Italy today. Well, almost nothing. I've seen the changes in France and Spain over the years. Those parts of the world that have something great and unique to offer are slowly becoming their own kind of Disneyland. Even in Italy, one of countries where the base level of food has always been so high, I'm seeing a degradation in the ordinary food. I don't know that we can blame it all on the tourists, but it seems to go hand in hand. At the same time Pontormo is correct in that if there's more mediocre and worse gelato around, the best keeps on improving. The secret seems to be to research your prey and learn what to look for when you don't have a good recommendation on what or where to eat.

I agree that the food should speak for itself. Meeting a chef has never improved the meal that's come before the meeting. On the other hand, actually speaking with a chef, or artist, whose work you really admire, can be a treat. I suspect the business of making the rounds began all innocently enough as an attempt to welcome diners graciously and personally to the restaurant. It's taken on a formality that is often uncomfortable for some diners and some chefs. At this points some chefs are damned if they do and others are damned if they don't

Coming on the heels of what Grimes has said: ". . . The idea of having a lifetime project dedicated to analyzing your every facial tic is frightening," and what Ruth Reichl has said "They would have done that to me," I think Fat Guy's concerns are legitimate. It's all too easy to find some fault wherever you look. When a person, or a web site, becomes obsessed with denigrating others, or just another person, it usually seems unbalanced and a bit perverse to me. I shouldn't limit my comment to the web, although vanity blogging is a cheap way to take shots at others. Running down others who have crossed your path is a poor premise for an autobiography. That's just one of the problems I've had with a book much discussed elsewhere on the site. It's a poor premise for a web discussion site as well and it's the problem I have with certain discussion sites. eGullet.org came of a certain age when it was able to fairly quickly drop its obsession with the site that drove many of its founders to create a new forum. The more balance I find in an individual's output, the greater the credibility I see most of the time. I'm not a fan of Bruni's and truthfully, I was less a fan of Grimes. In fact, it was during Grimes' tenure that I stopped reading the NY Times restaurant reviews carefully or regularly. I respect good criticism, but I don't want to get caught up in anyone's destructive obsessions.

They don't take reservations and that's the reason I haven't been there lately, otherwise it would be our number one impromptu place to meet friends. I don't recall the prices, but I recall they were a bargain and I suspect a couple can have dinner for under $100. You might have to split a dessert or an appetizer, then again Mrs. B sometimes ordered two appetizers and called it dinner. I would even imagine you could squeeze in a couple of glasses of wine. Wine prices were usually quite reasonable, if not as low as at Landmarc. On the otherhand, with a no reservation policy and a wine list with temptations, one could run up a good sized tab waiting for a table at the bar, or even waiting for two seats together at the bar. You can eat at the bar.

Having met a few chefs in the older generation and the younger generation, assuming we are talking of the same age gap, I don't think that's particularly true. I've never met David Kinch, but I've had e-mail correspondence with him and from what I've read here, he doesn't seem particularly struck by his own stardom. That sort of attitude might be more applicable to the TV chefs, but even there I'd not tar the lot with the same brush and note that it's their media stardom and not their chef stardom that might be the problem. I know Dan Barber. I'd go so far as to say we're friends, but it's not as if we socialize together. He's very shy and for years avoided making any sort of appearance in the dining room. his original co-chef, Alex Urena, was even shyer and more uncomfortable in the dining room. Once he came out of the kitchen at Marseille (a restaurant in NY in which he was the chef right after he left Blue Hill) to say hello to a friend at our table. Another diner at our table then put him on the spot with her interrogation and his discomfort was palpable, as was my embarrassment. I had hoped he'd remember meeting me at Blue Hill and then all of a sudden I hoped he hadn't. Dan, on the other hand, has made great strides in his public poise. We caught him once on TV and were struck by how well poised he had become in public. Dan, however, is not a TV personality chef, but he has been a spokesperson for sustainable farming and his restaurant in the suburbs is connected with a farm that is also part of an experimental and educational foundation. I suspect it's his commitment to education that's brought him out. It's worth noting to those who haven't read his op-ed pieces in the NY Times that Dan has a strong academic background and is very articulate. That should help him a bit. If Daniel Boulud is old enough to be part of the established generation, it might be worth noting my experiences with him. It might also be worth noting that I am very shy and not particularly outgoing. I don't always like to meet the chef and have been known to lessen my appearances at restaurants I frequent solely because they are convenient. I don't like to talk to the chef or owner unless I am honestly able to praise their food highly. Daniel is a man who is absolutely charming and gracious in public (and private as well, unless, as I hear, you really screw up on the line) and could have easily made a living as a maitre d' if he couldn't cook. In the early days of his original Restaurant Daniel he seemed to be working the room far more often than he does now. The best time to get to know a chef is when he's just opened his first restaurant and eager to develop a clientele. Even then, we found him more relaxed at lunch than dinner and it was after a leisurely lunch celebrating our daughter's graduation from college that we got to begin what turned out to be a rewarding relationship. Mrs. B and I had just returned from a visit to Lyon and that caught Daniel's attention as he's a native son. At some point he made a remark in French, our daughter replied in French and the two of them went off on their own tangent. She wangled a stage at the restaurant, if only to keep those who were asking what she was going to do with a degree as a history major, with a strong suit in French literature, on their toes. Today, I consider Daniel a friend, but as with Dan, I don't usually socialize with him--unless the event revolves around my daughter.

Gramercy Tavern used to be proud of their lemonade. I assume they still are.

And I hope I was not misunderstood. Offering a reservation to someone you know, even if that someone is only someone you know from the way he's posted about food on the internet, and offering it for free because you think that person deserves the reservation, is in no way related to attempting to sell a reservation to the highest bidder.

I'm surprised not to fine the concise definition in my earlier post. Michelin succinctly defines it as vaut le voyage. Where you choose to eat in a city you visite for business or pleasure is one thing, but a destination restaurant is one to which you travel simply to eat and not because it is in any way convenient. For me, the draw is basically the food, but of course I have a great curiosity about any place someone else things is a destination restaurant.

Witch hunts are offensive whether in public or private, and a witch hunt can be conducted in private as well as in public. When decisions are made quietly behind the scenes they may simply deny the public much wanted information. It seems just a bit disingenuous to say that the management team knows who the members are, when you also admit that sometimes you can't figure out what's going on. The nature of the medium is such that management probably can't have the resources to be absolutely sure anyone is who they say they are. When trolls, shills and slanderers are removed quietly behind the scenes without a public trace, the membership is less able to recognize that voice should it appear again and less able to judge the veracity of what they write elsewhere. It can weaken the strength of the truth and strengthen the liar's voice.

In that article it says: "Urena, Psaltis and Barber do all of the preliminary prepping or "breaking down" of the vegetables, fish and meats." I work in a very small fine dining restaurant (50 seats max), and it's quite common for the chef/sous-chefs to be doing this kind of work. None of the article "describes Doug's role in the kitchen as less than that of a sous chef". Maybe in a hotel a sous-chef wouldn't do this kind of labour, but in a 50 seater the chef and sous-chefs definitely would. ← The full quote to which you refer says: "Because Blue Hill is a relatively small restaurant—it has about 54 seats, bar not included—Urena, Psaltis and Barber do all of the preliminary prepping or "breaking down" of the vegetables, fish and meats." The co-chefs and sous chef are doing this work. The point I was making was that "anyone who reads the article will notice immediately that Doug handles some of the prepwork with Alex and Dan and that he's cooking. It's Dan who works the pass and performs the job of chef." Fair use practice and copyright law would prevent me from reposting the complete article here, but it will be clear to those who read the article that Dan is handling the chef's responsibilities while Doug is as far in the background as any sous chef might find himself. This is meant to refute Doug's contention in the book that Dan had little or no experience as a chef. That just simply flies in the face of what I saw when I was in the kitchen, what my daughter, who's worked in a couple of top NY restaurants prior to writing about food, saw when she was there and what others who have worked in Blue Hill have told me. Doug has been described as an honest fellow by those who may know him and most peculiarly by a few who have never met him, but felt the need to come to his defense here. What we haven't heard is support for his version of how things were at Blue Hill from anyone who was there with him for an hour, a day or the entire period of time he worked there. Alex was pretty clear when he was interviewed that he didn't support Doug's account. You may not know that Doug is lying, but you know you haven't heard support for his account. I'm not saying Doug wasn't the sous chef. I belileve his title was that of sous chef, but on this day, his duties seemed limited and Dan is clearly described as being in charge of restaurant and working the pass during service. Doug's role was so limited that when I followed up asking my daughter who wrote the article in Time Out NY about what she remembered about being there--basically, she trailed Alex for a day--and it was that Dan was running the show. She didn't really remember anything about anyone other than Dan and Alex Urena. Was she competent to understand what was going on? She had been in charge of the pastry kichen for Terrance Brennan at Picholine and had worked under Daniel Boulud, Alex Lee and François Payard at the original Restaurant Daniel. She was then also currently free lancing for Daniel Boulud on a number of projects and trying her hand at writing. As I noted earlier, it was one of the few restaurants with ramps on the menu--ramps being the subject of the article--where she hadn't worked with, or knew the chef.

It might if there was a Smith of any kind who owned the restaurant across the street.

There are so many related issues that make a discussion site more or less useful and more or less honest that I wouldn't know where to start. Sticking to anonymity, I will say that it's largely a problem when and if it's pertinent to the thread. I remember a post by someone who just happened to discover a wonderful new restaurant. Eventually it turned out she was the proud mother of the chef. Those things are sad. Sometimes the anonymity issue takes perverse turns. Recently an anonymous member who posted that he liked being anonymous insisted I was being devious for not revealing information that is a matter of public record while he reveals nothing but a propensity for taunting. Hypocrisy knows no bounds. Sometimes however, the dishonesty in a thread is not what's posted, but what's known and not posted.

Was that spinach dish at all reminiscent of a curry? In Matinique, a dish labeled "columbo," would invariably be in a curry sauce, often a creamed curry sauce, presumably in honor of the Sri Lankan city. I'm trying to recall if I've ever seen the term "columbo" on a metropolitain menu and I'm drawing a blanc.

I think it's one thing for someone who has a reservation to choose his dining companions at the last minute, or to show up with whoever he wishes. It's quite another to sell a reservation. I would also be very leary of taking anyone's word that they actually have a reservation. "I have a table for two under the name of John Doe on May 27, 2006 and you can have it for $500," is not an offer I'd buy, lest it not be true or lest elBulli not honor it. My guess is that elBulli would not honor such a reservation if it learned what happened and I would not be surprised if it did learn that someone were to make such an offer in public. I doubt that such an offer on eBay wouldn't make the papers or show up as a the topic of discussion here.

The esophagus of a water fowl and that of a human are no more alike than their feet or noses.

Landmarc has small and very inexpensive desserts allowing you to have a complete (three course) meal at a budget price. I often find dessert-less meals unsatisfying and Landmarc allows you to have just that little bit to fit small appetites and small budgets. Of course choosing the other courses carefully is the key. What you can also do at Landmark is have a half bottle of wine at less than what most restaurants will charge for two glasses of a wine that's probably inferior. Landmarc has a very nice selection of half bottles and the markup is unbelievably minimal. Two half bottles might be no more than a dollar or two more than the full bottle and the full bottle is likely to be a bargain. It seems a shame to eat at Landmarc and not have wine. Although the food is reasonably priced, it's the wine list that makes Landmard a bargain. I suppose my prejudice is showing in this thread. A "meal" without wine, is not really a meal, it's just feeding myself.

That's fine and without the anthropomorphism, your points are rational. I may still object to the focus on foie gras production in what at heart, is really an ethical objection to the raising of animals for human consumption, although I suspect hunting would also be seen as unethical. My objection to the focus on foie is based on the fact that I don't believe the suffering of the average duck raised for foie gras is anywhere near as great as that of the average chicken raised to be sold in supermarkets. Either we attack the eating of all meat, or we focus on the worst abuses. I'm not sure a discussion relating to the the ethics of eating meat is germane to this topic, simply because the topic is about the singling out of foie gras and the cruelty involved relative to the raising of other live stock. Gavage becomes offensive when one describes it as if it was applied to humans. "He was humiliated by being made to walk naked on all fours down Main Street," reads far differently when "he" is a horse rather than a man. Flesh as an unethical or immoral food, is really another topic, but let me for a moment wonder about a more ethical society where capital punishment is banned, or unnecessary because humans no long commit capital crimes. How will we treat those natural animals who live off prey? Will we treat them as criminals? Perhaps all I'm saying is that we shouldn't take this thread off topic by making the argument that it's okay to outlaw foie gras because all meat eating is unethical. That argument just opens a whole can of worms.

I've probably made offensive statements, but I recognize that convincing statements win arguments and influence people to agree with me. Offensive statements simply offend people and convince them to trun away from the discussion at hand. Statements that are purposely offensive and unconvincing are counterproductive. The argument that something shouldn't be because it doesn't exist in nature is also not a convincing one in our present society. If man was meant to fly he'd have wings is that kind of statement. It's not even a call to return to the horse and buggy era, as wheels are an unatural invention of man. We do a lot that's unnatural. Simply being unnatural is not a reason to condemn what we do. Modern medicine is not a particularly natural practice, nor are stud farms. The mule is not a natural animal, but its existence doesn't offend me. The lobster argument was also done to death in another thread with fascinating posts about the ability/inability of a lobster to feel pain. At any rate, what seems to be natural is for some animals to eat humans and for humans to eat animals. What's less natural may be for for humans to raise crops. Ethical and natural don't seem to be terms that exist on the same plane.

I don't, and I am not sure if they do (but I think so, as they have lattes and such). Next time I am in I will certainly check. - KOBI ← Starbucks has been described as a flavored hot milk drink shop. That's more accurate in my opinoiin than "coffee shop."

The last live poultry place I remember passing was not far east of Broadway on Grand Street, but that was a few years ago and I never went in. I think it was the smell that kept me out. I do remember buying a live rabbit on Broome Street just west of West Broadway. That would have been over thirty years ago and I don't think the place continued in business much longer after that. It was a small operation and I don't recall it being disgusting.

I just read back a page and Derrick Schneider, who probably knows more about foie gras, or at least has investigated the raising of water fowl for the production of foie gras to a greater degree than anyone else posting in this thread, say that none of the major producers in North America use battery cages. He said it here. This further solidifies my impression that the arguments against foie gras are based on ignorance, faulty information and prejuduces.

In an equally ridiculous extreme how about this shirt? Foie Gras = Duck Rape Eat whatever you wish, but at least have some respect for the lives that are taken in order to sustain your own. Foie Gras may only be fractionally worse (or better) than other things, cutting cows throats and letting them bleed to death or killing things in the most painful way possible in order to produce "adrenaline rich meat" as an aphrodisiac comes to mind. Turning it into a joke is to disrespect the sacrifice that has been made and the souls that have been taken - at least have some respect for the animals if we cannot or will not choose to let them be. ← Equally ricidulous? Sorry, I find nothing ridiculous at all in the statement "I love foie gras" or similar statements. On the other hand equating foie gras or the processes involved in producing foie gras to rape is not only ridiculous but offensive. If offends my sense of logic and reason and it should offend rape victims. We know that geese on a free range goose farm will come running to the feeder with the tube in his or her hand. It's consentual, at least in some circumstances as reported by trustworthy sources such as Ed Behr in the Fall 1998 issue of the Art of Eating. I will note that I've been told that ducks do not run to the feeder as eagerly. We can surely get into the issue of battery fowl and the caging of chickens as well as ducks, but it's a separate issue. To approach the issue intelligently without prejudice, you need to understand that whether or not ducks raised for foie gras in the US are, or are not, caged, It's not inherent to the production of foie gras to raise them in cages. If millions of chickens are battery raised to be sold in supermarkets, why are you ranting about the relatively small number of ducks that may also be battery raised? It's not that gavage doesn't hurt a duck less than it would hurt a human being, it's, as Dave H tried to explain, that ducks are very different and have very different physiologies. In fact he may have shortchanged himself by saying they had different reactions. They are simply constructed differently from human beings. The esophagus of a duck is lined with fibrous protein cells that resemble bristles and does not bear comparison to that of a human. Moreover ducks swallow grit and small stones when they feed in nature. That would hurt a human being and we have no reason to assume gavage hurts a duck at all. The anthropomorphism implied in your statement is unjustified and the analogy to rape is unjustified even if there was a similar indignity to have food fed to you by tube. Understand that the average foe gras duck lives a far better life than the average chicken raised for sale as food. The foie gras farmer, chef and consumer is an irrational target of emotional argument made without understanding or investigation. The most convincing argument against foie gras might be that it's unethical to eat meat at all. If we're to consider the quality of life of the animal up until death, then ducks rasied for foie gras might be among the last to be banned.

We didn't get a chance to do a lot of tasting. This this is nothing near an absolute opinion, but the pistachio at Carabe in Florence was the best gelato I had in Italy. Pistachio became my test flavor for comparison. We had some other good gelato in Padua and Florence and some very inferior stuff all around. Artisanal on the sign doesn't always mean quality. We didn't get to try many places in Florence.