PNW versus NY

[Foodie-Girl]

That all seems like basic stuff. Why do you think it doesn't happen enough in Seattle restaurants and is par for the course in NYC?

Clueless owners?

Good question.

When I'm in a restaurant that seems to be under- (poorly)staffed I have to assume it's economics....

[rooberu]

In response to Bux and slkinsey,

I admit making my choices based in large part on the "cult of celebrity" surrounding Lupa and Les Halles. I'm a big Mario fan, and I find Bourdain entertaining as well.

However, I also selected them based on my preference for straight-ahead workman's fare. I just gravitate more towards an honest bowl of pasta, or a steak and frites over foie gras, sea foam, and the like.

Perhaps at that level of dining, there is not the room to make an appreciable difference in the food you eat. When you get into the starred restaurants, I'm sure I am out of my league and I'm guessing from the other responses Seattle (and most other cities) would be as well. My regrets for offending any New Yorkers, you have enough problems being Yankee fans without my calling your food into question!

As an FYI: I've read many of your posts in the Spain forum, and perhaps I can give you a sense of where my palette is at.

If I had one meal to eat in Spain, I would be a happy man with Jamon Iberico, pa amb tomaquet and a nice cheap tinto. Maybe a wedge of tortilla too...

Edited August 11, 2004 by rooberu (log)

[Squeat Mungry]

The worst service I've ever encountered was in a "food city": San Francisco.  Abyssmal service pretty uniformly, at both high end and low end places, and on things I think are pretty fundamental, like course timing.  Dinners would take a minimum of 3 hours with waits of 30 minutes or more between courses.  Only once you got out of SF, even just over to Berkeley or up to the wine country, did things improve.

Extra, can I ask when you made this visit to San Francisco? I ask because I'm not the only one to notice a marked improvement overall in service in recent years.

From the linked article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Essentially, diners want to feel special again.

And that's just what the new breed is doing at several restaurants across the Bay Area. Relatively formal restaurants like Fifth Floor, the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, and Masa's have maitre d's who meld a traditional European service style with a looser, more personal and often irreverent touch. Others at more casual spots merge expert but informal floor service with business acumen, becoming both managers and touchstones for customers. Larry Bain at Acme Chophouse, John Jasso at Tablespoon, Lindsay Tusk at Quince, Jocelyn Hoar at Charles Nob Hill and Shelley Lindgren at A16 are but a few of the new breed.

Cheers,

Squeat

[victornet]

Random notes:

Yes, to include the hot dog joint as one of 4 NY meals was a big mistake. It's true that a Katz's pastrami sandwich would have been 10x better (even though I feel NY has nothing that equals the long-gone Romanian pastrami of otherwise forgettable Bernstein on Essex).

I practically lived at Les Halles when I lived in the 30's and needed aplace that was friendly to brnging a baby in a stroller (12 or so years ago) but it too is comfy but not special foodwise. If you wanted beef, Peter Luger would be memorable and on another plane.

I have to disagree with all about Lombardi's. Perhaps inconsistent, but still a great Pizza.

I'm fond of Lupa, but all are right that it is not Babbo. If you had gotten a table there, you would have a great sense of what Italian food in NYC can be, with rocking music. I'd also plug L'Impero.

Although I'd rarely send a West Coast person to a fish place in NY, Nobu would have been great - eating everything but the sushi (do that on your coast).

WD-50 would have given a great hint of where things are at, with a fun neighborhod and a less-heart attack inducing check than Daniel or Jean Georges. If you wanted that high end type of French food you would find Cafe Boulud not too stuffy and a menu that has the seasonal, the traditional, and the creative.

[ExtraMSG]

Squeat, that's sad if SF's service has gotten better. I go to the bay area once or twice a year, but my big trip was last summer. If it was worse before that....

In SF we hit Masa's, Gary Danko's, and Fifth Floor on the top end, plus several lower and mid-level places. Several major service glitches at all three of these, plus long waits between courses. But the lower and mid-level places weren't very accomodating either, even for the lower price. eg, at Zuni, my friend and I just wanted to get some oysters and go. They said no (there was no line or wait). Other things here and there and just a consistent level of rudeness that wouldn't be tolerated here in Portland or in my friend's home of Dallas. Never encountered that on other food trips.

I had really, really good service at both The French Laundry and Chez Panisse however. Admittedly, I've had better luck at some ethnic places in SF like Salvadorean and Mexican restaurants. (Chinese, however....)

[Hest88]

For me, the biggest disappointment in even the better Seattle restaurants is the lack of professional service.

It's certainly something I noticed in Portland as well. I'm not talking about rudeness or snottiness; I'm talking about service at higher-end restaurants. We were at Wildwood and Higgins and found the waiters friendly but really poorly trained.

[rachaelLK]

My NYC brother and his native-NYC wife were just here for a weekend and could not stop gushing about the quality of goods at the downtown (PDX) farmer's market. They claim that it tops the market in their once-hometown of SF. I've visited green markets across the states and throughout Europe during the summer harvest, and have yet to find a better selection of local goods. That said....

I would give anything for a sesame bagel with whitefish salad from Russ & Daughters!

[Suzanne F]

Sorry, Nick, but I have to agree with the comments on the service in Portland. It just fell a little short of what I expected, given the superb quality of the food and drink.

However: We just got back from a week in Seattle and Vancouver, BC, and I gotta tell youse guys, you got some great chow in dem dere jernts.

Actually, we only had one restaurant meal in Seattle, a dinner with my NYC-born cousin and her Seattle-native husband and teenage daughter at Ray's Boathouse . (The other meal was King Salmon and portobellos on the grill at a friend's house; can't beat that! ) The service at Ray's was excellent (server was extremely helpful in figuring out what my cousin should and should not order given a serious health reason, and what my cousin's daughter might like, given timidity in food choices); the food was very good to excellent (great curried mussels; yummy steamed cockles/manila clams; the famous marinated black cod; and sauteed sockeye salmon with Dungeness crab couscous which was erroneously called tabbouleh but given all the crab meat, so what?); the wine list was incredible (we ended up having excellent beers, though; how could I not have Red Hook IPA virtually at the source?). The meal was definitely on a par with some of the best we have at home in NYC. Maybe you could get a comparable meal (at a comparable price) at Landmarc or at one of Jimmy Bradley's places. Even at more expensive places here, you might not get a better meal overall.

Didn't get to Pike Place Market, but I have very fond memories from earlier visits. And the Portland markets were very, very impressive. In both cities (and Vancouver, too), there were much much better variety, quality, and prices than in NYC's Greenmarkets, for sure.

As for the choices rooberu made here: I love the hot dogs at Gray's (always ask for well-done), but that ain't a meal. Les Halles -- the downtown one at least -- is for a simple charcuterie plate or roast chicken or duck confit when I don't want to go more than 3 blocks; it's not a superb dining experience. I've never been to Lupa (but Babbo is indeed divine) or Lombardy's. All of them are more everyday places than special-visit places. The two I'm familiar with are just okay, nothing more nor less.

[ExtraMSG]

Though it's worth noting, Suzanne, that you only ate at one place with entrees over $20.

I've never denied that Portland doesn't have "professional" service. I've lamented the fact, also, that Portland doesn't have any haute dining. But you get what you pay for and in Portland you don't pay much. I also think it's largely stylistic. Portlanders and their servers are more laid back than in many other places.

The things that are most important to me -- not long waits for dishes, not long waits when you have reservations, keeping my drink full, pleasantness -- are all handled as well as I've experienced in other cities or better at the same price point. Of course, at places like Charlie Trotter's or The French Laundry I got vastly better service. (Though I did have to wait to be seated at Trotter's for a half hour, but they more than made up for it.) Not only did they handle all the basics impeccably, but I couldn't stump them with questions about the dishes and they handled lots of little things.

But then, as I mentioned about SF, I got good "professional" service except that they failed on many of the basics, most commonly *huge* waits between courses.

I guess what I'm really saying is that when someone says that this or that place has bad service, they need to expand on that declaration. So often it's more about priorities and what one privileges.

[cloying]

As opposed to a comparison to anywhere else I'd like to talk about what is lacking in the PNW, especially Seattle. It's as if we have only the middle ground restaurants and no or at least not enough, high end or low end. The top end is getting better, but there are no really high end places, there are places with great food and an ok room and ok service, or you can change the variables and get a great room with ok food. There are a lot of places where you can go and have an pretty good meal but very few if any that will really compare with what you can get in NY, LA or Chicago, let alone Paris.

For the low end I want cheap great food that feels like a value. I've been loving Paseo lately, a great sandwich that I feel has value. I'm not looking for a 2 dollar dinner as much as I'm looking for something I'm excited about that doesn't end up costing $40. In other cities it seems that there are more value places.

I think Seattle is a hugely over rated food city. Great ingredients, but a lack of anyone doing amazing things with them.

[Suzanne F]

Though it's worth noting, Suzanne, that you only ate at one place with entrees over $20.

. . .

I guess what I'm really saying is that when someone says that this or that place has bad service, they need to expand on that declaration.  So often it's more about priorities and what one privileges.

You mean where we ate in Portland? Oh no: we were at places that were closer to the top of our preferred price range: Wildwood; that place in a formerly industrial area near the water, with the small-larger-family size portions (it was new when we were there at the end of March) -- clarklewis, that is, just checked; and at the steakhouse in our hotel at Jantzen Beach.

The service wasn't bad, not at all. It was just a bit more casual than I like, in terms of the staff coming back to the table to see if we need anything (they didn't, much, so it was hard to order more when we would have), being around when we wanted the check, and being able to answer my questions about the menu. All the food we had was wonderful -- even at the hotel -- and when food is good, I expect the staff to take the pride I would and know everything about the food.

And in response to cloying's

I think Seattle is a hugely over rated food city. Great ingredients, but a lack of anyone doing amazing things with them.

-- I think that when the ingredients are as good at they are in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, the less they are fussed about the better. Maybe because I'm used to busy busy plates here (not that I like them), I'm very happy when top quality food is treated minimally, just enough to complement its inherent flavors. To me a great slab of super-fresh fish, gently cooked and barely sauced, is heaven.

Edited August 18, 2004 by Suzanne F (log)