Hest88

How casual is your restaurant? If it's a family restaurant I wouldn't see it as a problem, but in a more formal atmosphere it would be very annoying.

Wonderful! Thanks Carolyn. Will the reservations be under your name?

We didn't feel like going out, so we bought a huge hunk of Pierre Robert, lots of Carr's water crackers, and smoked trout.

It's very old-fashioned, indeed. Thank God, here in CA, there are far fewer companies that operate this way anymore.

How charming. Especially if the wife happens to be a working woman and possibly even, as are many of the spouses of executives that I know, a high-powered executive herself. And no, the ones I know don't have live-in private chefs either.

Thanks for the detailed review! It's also important to recognize that all restaurants have off nights, so it's definitely possible that Krys had great food while Jschyun and someone else had bad experiences. For instance, I keep hearing that Daniel in NYC is one of the most inconsistent high-end restaurants possible, so even top tier experiences can differ greatly.

Since no one posted on Squeat's... Yesterday, I heard a huge scream of outrage from my normally sunny husband. I knew he'd just read Michael Bauer's top ten. Sure enough, a moment later he yelled, "He has Pearl on his top 10!!!" We've been to Pearl twice, since we live in the area. The first time was about a week after it opened, when my DH slurped two bad oysters and watched our waiter pour non-alcoholic beer straight into a glass then watch bemusedly as foam proceeded to fill 2/3 of the glass. It was funny at the time. We reported the two bad oysters to the frenzied owner, who thanked us for letting him know, but no one elected to take two oysters off our bill. Since it was so busy, we let the incident go. My husband took some Pepto when we got home and suffered no ill effects. The 2nd time was some months later. We went right after work so the place was mostly empty. Still, our waitress spent a lot of time chatting with her co-worker, making it rather difficult to flag her down. My DH also got another off oyster (though not obviously bad as during the first visit). As we left he commented that in all his years of eating oysters at restaurants both high, mid, and low end, he'd never gotten a bad oyster. Odd that it would happen twice at Pearl. We decided that when we wanted a local oyster fix we'd head to Cafe Rouge or Grasshopper. We both suspect that Michael Bauer's stellar service was the result of being recogized.

What Marie-Louise said, but much less eloquently.

When you go to Koi Palace be sure to check out the tanks and ask them for recommendation for unusual seafood. See if they have live scallops, don't miss the spotted prawns (steamed), and check out the lobster and crab.

Ooooo, a thousand genuflections from me!

What's hard for me is that I grew up learning manners, but Chinese ones. So, not putting my elbows on the table is still rather difficult for me to remember at times. The passing thing also always seemed so needlessly inefficient to me!

I haven't been in an academic environment for a long time, but often eat in company cafeterias. I think food is better now than it was back then, in no small part because schools are no longer providing food but instead are bringing in outside companies who must make profits. Students (and employees) are mobile now and have the option of eating elsewhere if the food is horrendous, so these outside companies need to create palatable food.

Glad to hear you're safe and looking forward to the rest of your blog!

See, I think we should differentiate between requests that just offend the sensibilities of the chef and requests that are truly onerous to the kitchen. Denying the former is just a way for the chef to exercise power over his domain. It serves no real purpose except to fuel his anger and alienate his customer. Is leaving salmon on the grill just a few minutes longer *really* that big a deal in the grand scheme of things? But, as Nullo pointed out, when it comes to something that really causes trouble or is virtually impossible--such as removing okra from gumbo-- the kitchen really has a practical reason to deny the request.

Hillvalley, I'll be praying for the safety of your friend.

Foodwise, I got the new Harold McGee as well. My DH said it was sold out everywhere and he kept talking to annoyed bookstore clerks who had obviously told a hundred people already that they weren't getting more until after Xmas. Luckily, Amazon came through!

Oh darn. I just saw a few wheels about a month ago but since we had other dinner plans decided to pass them up. Now I wish we'd scrapped our dinner plans!

Unexpectedly sublime Peking duck. Best I've had in years.

Mmmm. Maybe I'll pop by tonight to pick up dinner...assuming the rain lets up.

They're really good after a workout. Back when they were first springing up I used to get one for breakfast each day: Citrus Squeeze with no banana substituted with strawberries. That was before they implemented across the board prices, so the Citrus Squeeze was in the cheapest tier. I've recently switched to Berry Lime Squeeze. Has anyone noticed their Jamba Juices getting more watery or is it just me?

My favorite breath mints for taste alone are Certs and orange Tic Tacs. They don't work very well, but they sure taste good. For real breath mints I use Altoids Cinnamon.

I've left meat in the frig for three days (okay, once it was four) without a problem. I have a strong immune system, though, so that doesn't mean I endorse that length of time!

Ah yes, Valladolid. The Caldo Tlalpeno at El Meson is among my top food memories.

Never wash mine either.

Okay, I caved and bought a Chestnutter. It arrived yesterday and I took it for a test drive. The gadget is the size of a small ice cream scoop and all-metal--giving it quite a nice heft. On the good side, it definitely allowed me to score the chestnuts quicker than with the traditional method. However, there are three things about it that I wish were different. 1) The "bowl" you stick the chestnuts in is rather small. I suppose it would be okay if you were only using small Italian chestnuts, but I was scoring small to medium sized Korean chestnuts so the medium chestnuts were a tad too big to fit comfortably. Large ones would be impossible. 2) I expected it to work like a ricer. It does--sort of. Unfortunately, the heavy metal levers fit together closely without a gap, which means that if you squeeze the levers together with your entire hand you risk pinching your skin most painfully. (I did it rather gingerly, but still managed to pinch myself once.) However, if you just use your fingers to press down and avoid the pinch it's hard to get enough strength to press down easily. 3) The blades are rather exposed, which means you have to be very careful not to cut yourself on them. At times I would get a chestnut stuck and had to carefully pry it out of the bowl while avoiding the blades. Also, because the levers aren't spring loaded I can definitely see the lever accidentally dropping down and cutting you while you're trying to extract the chestnut. So, the concept of the Chestnutter is good, but hopefully Version 2 will solve some of these problems, especially the safety issues.