Bux

I have no trouble accepting this as the case at hand. It's a pity that the Times shirks its duty to educate diners. This is not the only manifestation of that failure. Anyway, Grimes has often expressed disdain for chefs and the profession. I didn't understand why he was chosen to be a restaurant reviewer and I believe he's still learning how to dine, with the handicap of not really enjoying it. I don't sense he has the respect for the profession to develop the interest needed to understand what it is to be a chef. I suspect his audience not only doesn't know better, but doesn't really care all that much. My guess is that only a minority of eGullet members really care. This is not to say there are not a lot of people who care that much about what they eat, they just don't care that deeply.

You're a tough guy Christopher. I'm even less familiar with fashion design than I am with restaurant kitchens so I won't comment on how hard it is to replace a good cutter or draper, but a good chef de cuisine or even a sous is not that easy to replace and a replacement can make a difference in the food, but you're both right of course. Ducasse doesn't easily turn over the kitchen to any of his chefs until he's satisfied with the job they're doing and it's Ducasse's job they're doing. If the executive chef is creating, he's doing so to Ducasse's style and directions in closely overseen conditions. Ducasse gets the ultimate blame or credit.

I suppose one has to make a distinction between Benoit which is an older traditional, can one say "authentic," bistrot and La Regalade which is to an exrtent retro in that it's run by a chef who used to cook mulit-starred haute cuisine food. I'm not sure where that puts Aux Lyonnais which is an old and authetic machon, bouchon or Lyonnaise style bistrot now partially owned by Alain Ducassse and whose desserts may come from the kitchens at the Plaza Athenée. Now there's a three days project that should be a labor of love. We could easily find a couple of other places and make it a week's work. Trou Gascon is probably another nomimee, but maybe it's a restaurant and not a bistrot.

I believe I've seen a wine on the list coming from an obscure D.O. barely known to the human race. Manchuria?!, no, wait a sec, Manchuela!!. I've seen that peculiar wine in NY. I assume it was deported. Probably as a result of being a foreign varietal. The problem with Spanish wines in NY is that they cost as much here in a retail shop as they do in a restaurant in Spain. Or is it that one of the joys of dining is Spain is that the wines are so well priced? In La Rioja, we saw a car with French license plates loading several cases of wine into his trunk. We understood.

I don't recall the service being clumsy, although it's less polished than at some of the more elegant restaurants, perhaps. In any event we found the service friendly. If I had any complaint about the arrival of courses it would be that they arrived too soon after I had finished the last one. From my notes "Once again courses arrive one after the other. Almost as soon as a course is cleared, the next one arrives." I wonder if this was a sign that we were receiving VIP treatment. If so, than it tend to confirm my impression that Spaniards eat at less leisurely pace than I normally like to do. Onions' complaint seems to reinforce that as well. At all of the "better" restaurants (one star and above) in which we ate, we never felt the food service was too slow. We often felt it was rushed.

Perhaps all of the above for me depending on mood, but more on time and place. My wife and I always order different things, except when we both want the same thing. Every restaurant meal is a different situation and I can't adopt a set of rules for ordering. Either I can't, won't or I'm still learning how to order. If it's the last, I fear eating out will become much more boring if I ever learn. There's a big difference when I'm traveling and know this may be my last shot at this reasturant in a long time, or even a once in a lifetime shot. Garnishes rarely make a difference between too dishes, they are often the reason I will order a dish.

I think it's always good news when you can get what you want, where you want it, but it's not necessarily bad news that you can get something special at a restaurant that will heighten the pleasure of dining there. Dara's 1,3 and 4 reasons are just good reasons to go out to eat at a good restaurant and enjoy it. There's no point in crying over the fact that you can't get the same wine at home unless you've already managed to get the same food at home. If you can cook better than the restaurant can, well then I guess they need some gimmick to stay in business. Reason 2 is just a good reason to stay away from bad restaurants. Besides if the wine is bad, you don't want it at home, although if you're eating at those restaurants, it's possible you don't know the wine is bad and then there's a bigger problem than just not being able to get overprice bad wine at home. Reason 5, is common sense. The world's a large and largely uncontrollable place. The cure for illogical distribution of wine falls below the radar when I think of problems that need to be cured.

Far too personal a choice for me to make any input without more of a sense of what you want, but you should know that Robuchon only takes reservations for the the first sitting. That's 5:30, or is it 6:30, for dinner. Once one settles in to Paris time, it seemed very early to eat, although we tried for a next day reservation for dinner and couldn't get it. I suspect it's not that hard a month in advance. Where are you staying, or rather do you have the services of a good concierge? That's an advantage of sorts, but a call a month or more in advance will usually secure a reservation on one of the top places. Fax works well and I'm pretty sure we made our reservation for Arpege by e-mail just under a month in advance of the date. E-mail is getting much more reliable. There was a times when French restaurants and hotels had e-mail addresses, but seemed to check their mail once a month.

Welcome to eGullet and thanks for that report. It sounds as if you had a well rounded dining experience in Paris. Why do you say that? I seem to recall having butter at the table of two and three star restaurants rather consistently for at least the last 25 years or so. On the other hand, the less expensive restaurants still don't offer butter with bread. Your posts echos what others have said about lunch at Grand Vefour being a breat value. It's interesting to read your comments about Trou Gascon. I believe it's still owned by Alain Dutournier who's been getting some good comments here for his main restaurant--Carée des Feuillants and some attention for his soon to open Pinxo. I think he's a solid chef who doesn't get enough attention and press. Asking for a no-smoking in table in Paris is always a dilemma for me. I really abhor cigarette smoke when I'm eating, but I find many restaurants treat non-smokers with disdain. On the other hand there seems to be a growing number of chefs who ask their diners not to smoke in the dining room out of respect for other diners and the food. My impression of Les Grandes Marches is that it's very atypical of the Flo operation and that the food was not representative of their traditional brasseries. It was meant to be a departure as it was the first time they opened a new brasserie rather than buying out an existing traditional establishment. We were there for a Sunday lunch two years ago and though the food was well cooked. In fact we wrote that it was simply prepared but excellent. I wonder if it's gone downhill. For what it's worth Christian Constant was the consulting chef and he's also the chef/owner of Violon d’Ingres, which did not please you either. I'm sorry to hear that, not because I've eaten there, but simply because we met him earlier this month as he was closing his new cafe for the evening and we found him charming and generous--he offered our group of eGullet members beers while his staff mopped and locked up. In answer to your final question, I am sure cooking is getting much better here in the US, at least in some parts of the country and in some ways, we are now in a position to teach a few things to the French. Bear in mind that I've been a Francophile for at least forty years, but never a blind fan, or so I'd like to think.

No comment, but I'd have "I want some seafood mama" playing in the background. The original Fats Waller please, not the Andrew Sisters.

I would have thought they'd put one in the trunk of a Mercedes. When EasyCar was first mentioned I thought of the Smart car. I saw one in Paris with an EasyCar ad on the side. I wondered how useful a Smart car would be for a tourist in Paris. After all they still require some sort of space to park. Parking in Paris is far more orderly and controlled these days than it was in the sixties. We did come across two Smart cars imaginitively, for lack of a better word, parked at an intersection on the left bank and Mrs. B nudged my arm and asked "What were they ever thinking." In retrospect, I understood she was referring to the drivers, but at the time all I could think of was, "Dear, they're smart cars, but I don't believe they're thinking." Oh well, you had to be there.

I've seen the big time pressures from a close enough point and I can't say I blame him. I"ve always valued enjoying life on a day to day basis very highly. One can discuss the Michelin stars from any number of angles, but I suspect there's a certain kind of rationale working here. On one level that red book is what it was meant to be 100 years ago. I reference of places to stop and eat as well as sleep on the road. In France at least, it's become a map of destinations, but my guess is that Las Rejas, anywhere in that area, would become a destination place for tourists faster if it moved to a Relais et Chateaux inn with swimming pool than if it got two or even three stars. I say that from an impersonal view. In fact, it's the rich surroundings and expensive rooms that keep me from spending more time in French inns with great food. In another thread, I noted one of the disconnects between the French and French foods is that the best restaurants are pricing themselves out of the local market. In the Pais Vasco, with possible exception of Akelarre for some reason, I heard very little English in the best dining rooms. The two and three star places were as well used by locals as by tourists and it was a pretty at-home sort of crowd. Lots of shirtsleeves and informality. Perhaps I'm being a little unfair to the French in comparing Paris to the Pais Vasco, but that was my impression. I'd like to see a place like Las Rejas in the country with an inn attached or in a small town with a few bars and choice of reasonably priced hotels. Echaurren is a good example of a place to stop for the night, or even as a base for a short stay.

Mags, I'm with you on the pens. I mean you just need a ballpoint pen to sign a credit card slip. Any nice pen will do, just as you don't need to select the china or silverware pattern for your place settings. That's the house's job as is the selection of a pen that represents its style. Speaking of the tableware, the knive selection and the pen selection were both gone by the time I saved up my pennies to dine there, but I can honestly say, I'd have had no experience or basis for chosing one knife over the other for the task at hand and those kinds of choices were pretentious. It's nice to have a stool for a ladies purse, it would be pretentious to ask the women to choose from a selection of stools. I don't know that it was or wasn't the best meal I've ever had in NY. On a course by course basis, I've had some better food. The service was excellent, but maybe better than I need in a way that I sense Mags will understand. Nevertheless, there was a genuine degree of relaxed luxury that is not present elsewhere in NY, or at least that I've not seen in NY. There was, at all times thoughout our luncheon a sense that whatever it cost, it was worth it. When, or if, we'll spring for it again is another story, although we've paid considerably more for a meal elsewhere in the world, most notably in Paris. I'm not sure how the terrine of foie gras is prepared at Ducasse, but I don't see any reason why it would necessarily not be intact. I assume it's prepared on the premises and from whole lobes.

Well, in that sense, it is what you make it. If you want to ignore the context for the food rating, that's your business. Nowhere have I said or implied I want to ignore the context. What I want is for the context to be clear. I don't want to see a 27 for pizza next to a 27 for haute cuisine lest it not be obvious that they're not in competition with each other. I want an idiot proof guide where 27 means 27. If one restaurant gets a 27, I should be able to assume that another restaurant with 27 is the equal. Every restaurant is what it is. If every restaurant were scored according to its aims a good neighborhood restaurant is worth 27 and a good one star restaurant is worth 27 and a good two star restaurant is worth 27 and finally a good three star restaurant is worth 27 (in the three star class, of course). In the Michelin guide, an excellent neighborhood restaurant is a one star. It's much clearer than in Zagat where a 28 may be an excellent neighborhood restaurant and a 27 a very good world class restaurant. I find some absurdity in that. Granted, I have no reason to expect most of the people who submit a Zagat survey to be in a position to offer me any advice on dining, but when I see prices for places and note that a place gets a 27 food rating but only charges on average $25 per person, low for that kind of rating, my assumption is not that the food might be rated up because it's seen as a good value, but that the surveyors may have no taste. So Zagat's inherent "democratic" flaws just get compounded by the rating system. The truth is that taste is highly subjective and I've met people who prefer Olive Garden to Babbo. Zagat's "strength" is that their vote counts as much as anyone qualified to be a Michelin inspector. Moreover, it would seem that a restaurant with a rating of 27 that charges $50 should be a better value than a restaurant with a rating of 27 that charges $100. That's not the case here if two different standards exist for the same rating number. But the unstarred level, like Fodor's and Frommer's, gives you little basis for comparison. You have to read all the reviews and interpret them correctly. Not that that's necessarily bad. But Zagat's way of doing things has its advantages. You lose me here. There are no reviews to read in Michelin, but of course a good review by an intelligent reviewer will provide far more to go on that a numbered or starred rating. Believe me. I'm not arguing that Zagat couldn't be better. But my impression is that several of you on eGullet consider it good for little more than a directory of restaurants. This is quite true. There's a very large circle of people who feel this way. I think you'll find that among people who take their meals very seriously, there's little respect for a guide that's a survey of opinion largely dependent on people who don't take food very seriously. Is that surprising? Not for their opinions to be valid, but for their opinions to be taken as valid advice by those whose tastes are more educated. This is taking a peculiarly reverse snobbism approach. Haute cuisine, by its nature is complex, refined and intellectual. Therefore it's more interesting to talk about and may be more interesting to eat, but it's not better to eat or tastier to eat or even superior to eat. Read anything I've written about my travels and you will see that I've frequently written that my most memorable meal is a tie between a meal that may have cost five or six hundred dollars for two and something like a meal whose main course may have been a chitlin sausage in a brasserie. I can however, objectively state that one restaurant deserves three stars and the other does not. Flattening the scale doesn't achieve a democratic purpose, it just pretends haute cuisine doesn't exist. "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." Why institutionalize that kind of subjective lack of taste based on knowledge? I'm not saying anyone should love fine cuisine, only that those to whom I look for recommendations on where to eat need to be knowledgeable and appreciative of food. There's a great difference between saying people have the right not to be educated and denying that experts exist in any field. Everyone has the right not to be a doctor, but those who choose to become one should demand the most knowledgeable teachers. The public has the right not to care about what they eat, but why are you surprised that connoisseurs demand to have the opinion of trained palates and not rely on a popularity contest?

Actually, I have seen the survey form, or at least I saw one a few years ago, but I coudn't raise the interest to fill it out--or I was loathe to be a part of a survey whose final results I couldn't see as worthwhile. I was also troubled by the 3 point scale. I couldn't, in good conscience, fit all my restaurant experiences in three classes. Moreover, I suspected that many participants with less dining experience, or with experience within a smaller range, would be sure to use 3 as their top number, negating the difference I saw between a restaurant such as Daniel and and one to which I would never return. For the most part I agree with your criticism of the rather undemocratic nature of the survey. Although I don't know of any restaurant that's stuffed the ballot box beyond what's reported here, but I can remember my childhood, when someone in my neighborhood knew someone running for Miss Reingold. All of us little kids ran around to the grocery stores snitching pads of ballots and returning the ballots to the boxes with our selection marked. It seemed like a fair game and we played it with enthusiasm. The last issue of the guide I have is from 2001. I haven't gotten a new one since I've changed banks. My old bank used to send me a copy, but they also screwed me out of 2% whenever I made a withdrawal from an ATM in a foreign country.

That's just plainly false. I'm going to be a little bit of an asshole here, but have you looked at a Zagat guide? Zagat divides its entries by food, service, decor, price, and cuisine. If you merely look at the listing of Top Food Ranking, a) you're an idiot, and b) you're ignoring the vast majority of the book. Let's not confuse a horizontal rating with a vertical rating. That Zagat separates the food, the service and the ambiance is good, but it doesn't change the fact that the food ratings for burger places, pizzerias and haute cuisine places are all on the same scale. I'd take issue with that. For one thing it's too blanket a statement and if you're limiting the discussion to the books you choose, you're stacking the deck. The GaultMillau guide in France not only rates restaurants on a 20 point scale (actually nine or ten points as no scores are given below 11) and includes far more text on each restaurant than does Zagat for the least important restaurants. As the rating increases, so does the relative amount of text. It also offers a greater number of symbols indicating all things related to food and facilities. Anyway, the short blubs in Zagat, which are not democratic at all, do not add to the reliability of the guide. That's an interesting statement. On the whole, I've found Michelin guides both in France and Spain, more useful at the unstarred level. Our working relationship with Michelin appears to be quite different. Over the years, the red guide has proven invaluable in finding local places for lunch that do not serve haute cuisine. Either you only eat in haute cuisine restaurants in countries where you use the Michelin guides, or you've missed their real function, although some would argue their best feature is the inner city maps that show one way streets. That's the last thing I want to discuss and it's possible you're misreading my arguments for separate parallel guides for radically different types of restaurants, though I clearly believe that a neighborhood restaurant and a world class destination restaurant belong in the same guide with different ratings. Perhaps a misunderstanding has arisen as it's never been clearly stated whether Grocery is seventh in popularity or in points for food. Yes and not part of this discussion Actually Zagat is not all that democratic. For it to be truly democratic, all of the participants should have had equal access to all of the restaurants. Not only access, but experience. If in fact people are voting with different experiences and different scales in mind, it's just a poor survey with no scientific standing. On, and I haven't called anyone an asshole. Just to be clear.

Actually, most people who eat, don't really care much at all what they eat, or at least they don't care with any discrimination. Let's forget most people. Most people aren't reading eGullet. People with a real interst in food are. Rock critics, jazz critics and classical music critics all publish reviews in the NY Times and the often all publish on the same day. Likewise the NY Times maintains restaurant reviews at two different levels of pricing. Earlier in this thread I've argued for separate listings for taco places, burger places, barbeque places and find restaurants precisely because any attempt to compare them to a single standard will lead the diner astray. Zagat attempts to lump all classes of restaurants in one guide under one heading. That either leads to what may be referred to as elitism where a modest burger place is not in the same league as a haute cuisine restaurant. It's not that the tablecloths aren't white, or that they aren't there, it's that the food is far simpler and must on a single scale be rated lower or be misleading. Or you could rate all restaurants on the scale of what they're trying to accomplish. So a great burger place gets the same rating as a great luxury restaurant. Clearly, if two restaurants rate a 27, I'm going to expect the same sort of food and I'll be disappointed. One should look at any single guide and know what to expect from each restaurant relative to any other restaurant in the guide. It's clear from the two articles/reviews in the Times, that this isn't the case with Zagat. An argument that says a barbeque place shouldn't be rated alongside a haute cuisine restaurant is an good one because it leads to guides that are less confusing. An arguement that says a barbeque place and a haute cuisine restaurant should each be rated on separate scales and then placed in the same guide alongside each other is an argument for publishing a confusing guide. The reason Michelin works, is because they have a standard to which they try to adhere. Zagat is working without a standard. By the way, the Michelin guide is a bit of a red herring here because until recently, all restaurants in France followed the same pattern. In Michlin's defense however, it should be noted that Michelin provides many symbols in addition to the stars. Why is it that those who don't use Michelin, only know the stars. Michelin has a symbol for a reasonably priced meal that offers great value and another one that lets you know the restaurant offers a three course meal for less than a certain price. That price rises with inflation and I don't recall what it is this year. It also does claim the lowest priced category is a good value, only that you can eat an accpetable meal for under a certain price. Michelin also has a special symbol denoting a tapas bar in Spain. It's not nearly as rigid as some believe. My point here is only to say that if I pick up a guidebook, any single guide book that rates by stars or numbers, there should be consistency at what sort of restaurant gets a certain number. It's called communication. Fodor's and Frommer's do not offer ratings by numbers in the way Zagat does and I'd note that Michelin does not rate the vast majority of the restaurants in their guide. All they do is list the restaurant and give its price range with some assurance, that those prices are reasonable for the food.

This is a whole other thread about gastronomic travel, all by itself. With the advent of some very creative cooking by first rate chefs, one is often tempted to travel to destination restaurants and to forget about eating local foods. I remember a time when all the food of western Europe seemed rooted to the place. In retrospect, much of that is now rooted to the time as well, unfortunately. Before I was fully aware of my affliction, I began traveling on my stomach. Waverly Root's The Food of France became my primary guide book to that country north of Spain (just to stay on topic). I would order a dish at a restaurant and my wife would ask what I ordered. My answer would be "I don't know, but I recall Root said was a regional specialty," or maybe I knew what it was and my wife knew it was something I had previously refused to eat, or eat again. This time my response to "Why did you order that? You don't like it," was similar. "Root said it was the local specialty." I think there's a need to eat that way to know you've been someplace and to understand or appreciate that place. I guess it's the one way to really have a justifiably gut reaction to traveling. Montezuma's revenge is often the reward. It seems so obvious to me now, but I don't think it was always so and I don't think it often dawns on people to order food they don't like. When we sit at a table we want to be pleased, not have a lesson. Most people choose what they feel is a reasonable compromise and some manage to find the differences between the McDonald's of different parts of the world. Perhaps in the future, that's how little distinction there will be between the foods of different regions. I'll not celebrate that future. All of this is probably part of the reason I need to make a few last minute uneducated restaurant choices on the spot. The baby pig at an unheralded asador in Lizarra-Estella was the kind of dish that put me squarely in a place in a way the starred meals didn't.

Your milage obviously varies, but I've found Michelin a hell of a lot more reliable than Zagat. Just the fact that it's got a consistent set of reviews across the board makes it better. I mean it's great that a connoisseur gives Le Bernardin a 28 and some kid who's never eaten in a restaurant with tablecloths rates a local dive as 27 throws the whole thing off beyond any recognizable value to me. Why place such a value on non-professionalism? Surely any job worth doing is worth doing by someone who's educated and trained.

My son-in-law and daughter were the first people I knew who ate at Berasategui. They, or at least my son-in-law, had met him at Daniel when Martin visited NY. I was not with them when they ate there and thus don't know how it may have affected what they ate, but I thought they had the standard tasting menu. I know they got some special treatment, because Martin felt indebted for the way he was treated in NY. When we first visited, a year or two later, we intended to mention their visit, but Martin was not in the restaurant. We were therefore just first time customers. Lunch then, on the terrace was wonderful, but less impressive than on this recent visit. I thought service was a bit cold. My daughter had also visited Arzak. I preferred Arzak on the first visit to each restaurant. She was far more impressed with Berasategui. After our second visit I share her opinion. As I didn't share that opinion when she first expressed it, I doubt it played a role in our opinions. By the way, Esilda was wowed more than I was the first time we ate at Berasategui. It took me a second visit to appreciate his food. I believe it was also because his cooking matured. Anyway, when reserving for our second visit, I asked my daughter if she thought he would remember them and she said, probably not. My son-in-law has, in the past, been quick to make calls for me, if he, or someone he knows, thought they could get VIP treatment for me. No offer was made regarding Berasategui. As far as I know, the restaurant may not have been aware this was our second visit. It was three and a half years ago that we last ate there and longer ago that our daughter was there. The only advantage we had was that Esilda speaks Spanish, but that was an advantage most of the diners had. I believe it was Michel Roux who was holding court at a large table in a room behind a planter. He was gone well before our meal was complete and I doubt he noticed anything about our service nor that Martin cared to impress Roux with my service or food. Earlier, I worried that my service might suffer and that he would get all the attention. I suspect any differences experienced were a matter of luck and perception. We had lunch both times and the view out the windows, or over the terrace were certainly a lovely addition, but overall, I found the dining room pleasant enough. How it might appear at night under artificial lighting is something I can't say. I also believe this might not be the only room. The room was very green. I might not have chosen that color, but it's a very Basque color. As for waiting, I seem to recall that we found lunch at Berasategui very well paced. Far better than at other places where we felt rushed. With the exception of feeling rushed in some other places, I can't fault most of the service we had in and around Donostia, and the service at Berasategui was among the best. Our wine was kept across the room and well out of our reach, so it was important that our glasses were properly refilled and they were, although I suspect we may not have finished our water. Esilda objected to the affected coffee cups. They bothered me far less than affectations at Michel Bras for one. I found the cups amusing and had no sympathy for her position, but I believe that was her sole complaint. She was quick to pronounce the food "finer" than at Las Rejas, though not necessarily better. For me this was the one meal that best challenged Las Rejas. By Michelin standards, as I understand them, this was a better meal than at Las Rejas. There was a greater visual appeal to the dishes and general ambiance is finer.

There's a lot that's been said about grinders here in the past and the informed view is that a good grinder is expensive and a vital link in producing good coffee. A lot is going to depend on how you make your coffee and what sort of machine you use.

Cod, fresh and dried, may be a bit of an acquired taste, especially the dried. On the other hand, with the exception of single dish at Daniel in NY, I can't think of any fresh cod dish that's come near what I expect in quality in Spain. The difference in what's available dried is even greater. In the states, if one is lucky enough to live near an ethnic market, one might find some prepackaged salted fish for sale. If you're really lucky, you might even get a choice of cod and some other tasteless fish. In Spain, there are whole shops specializing in dried cod. Just seeing the range of cuts and prices, one has to develop a curiosity about the product. My final taste of Spain (not counting the coffee or the cheeses or piquillos we brought back) was of a tortilla with cod for breakfast before we hit the road home.

I read the contract online. Kudos for making the fine print available so far in advance, at least one can prepare themselves for the fact that if they don't consider the car clean, they will clean it and that if they haven't finished cleaning the car by the hour at which you've contracted to return the car, you will be charged a late fee of 120 euros. Ouch! I'd be sure to leave very ample time for check in.

Am I the only one who finds it not only a bit noisy, but just too dark? I had a hard time eating with a knife and fork as I couldn't see my plate.

Clearly, or not so clearly, there are many subjective degrees of grace and some people apply the term to any socially accepted behavior while others save if for more saintly behavior. And it's true that at a certain level one expects graciousness from a joint that's part of the hospitality industry. I'm reminded of a young woman of some charm at the front desk of a hotel In Lyon, France. We were having a problem communicating with a less than helpful airline representative while using the desk phone. She noticed and suggested that she could intercede for us. Her French was certainly better than ours. She solved our problem after a few minutes on line, but when she hung up the phone, the first words out of her mouth were, "and that woman is in the hospitality industry." While the customer is not always right, some people don't do what they're paid to do for the customer either, so what's expected may well be seen as gracious. Oh yeah, the hotel was the Grand Condorde, a gracious hotel, but not that ritzy and not the most expensive in Lyon. No one ever gets their right to post revoked for being wrong. If that were so, we'd be shrinking rather than growing as a site. We all suffer misapprehensions and eGullet is more successful if in the end, we all learn something rather than just not make mistakes. As for the wine, if it's not what it should be, the house should take it back, just as it should take back salad with a worm or soup with a fly. It's not so much that the diner rejects the wine, as it is that the house is not expected to serve wine that's off. In fact, I've seen very elegant restaurants where the sommelier will taste the wine to be sure it's okay. That seems to make some people suspicious, but any sommelier whose palate is not far better than mine in this regard, shouldn't be holding the position. A good sommelier will probably reject more wines than I would. Maybe that's the reason most restaurants want the diner to taste the wine. For every diner who tries to return a good bottle just because he doesn't like it, or worse yet because he's showing off, there are many diners who are too timid to return a bottle, especially when it's borderline and they're not sure. I'm sorry if I've appeared less than gracious in my post or if I misread your remarks. I find that some people do believe they taste a wine to see if they like it and I don't want to see that misapprehension perpetuated on eGullet.