Not impressed with fancy shmancy food

[chromedome]

Oy, lots of divergent directions and insights going on upthread. Interesting.

I have a couple of problems with dining out. Being a good home cook, and a professional cook, does not make *me* unnecessarily finicky...but my wife gets really pissy and says, "You could make this better at home." Another, of course, is that the places where I can afford to eat are not the places where I'd learn some things and be blown away by the food. A tight eating-out budget (and no car) really put a crimp in the enjoyment factor.

On the whole, I'm not a subtle-flavours person either. I like bold, vivid flavours, which is why I eat Indian food about 200 times for every bite of sushi. So yeah, that's a clear-cut prejudice.

As for fancy-schmancy? Well, I work at a fine-dining restaurant where the chef doesn't believe in dressing things up. She says that honest food stands on its own and doesn't need to be played with, which means that our food is plainer-looking than that of our peers. I guess she's a throwback to the Escoffier-era thinking that the vegetables *are* the garnish. She must be doing something right, she can point to 25 years of steady growth. Of course, Edmonton is rather a conservative place foodwise.

I guess the bottom line is to be aware of our predispositions, and to take them into account when eating out.

Having said that, there are lots of possible extenuations in the meal that launched this thread. If the food was lacklustre, perhaps the chef was attempting to put the wines front and centre, and planned food accordingly? Certainly a soupy rhubarb crumble could be nothing more than an untimely brain cramp on the part of a commis, as opposed to a problem with the chef's design. Personally if I was out to impress people with my food, I would not have gone with risotto; given that making it in large quantity involves a quality compromise. I've cooked it for large groups before (as recently as last weekend, in fact) but only in circumstances where the cooking of the dish was done in front of the diners as part of an interactive demonstration (I had a cast-iron pan a metre in diameter to work with, made things pretty simple).

[Daniel Rogov]

Only great chefs or great cooks can make great dishes on a regular basis. That does not mean that all dishes that great chefs or cooks will prepare will be great.

[Pan]

[...]where presentations have all the precision and all of the warmth (ie, none) of a Schönberg composition[...]

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I just thought I'd mention in passing that I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Schoenberg's works lack warmth. So there!

And back to discussion of fancy shmancy food...

[Busboy]

[...]where presentations have all the precision and all of the warmth (ie, none) of a Schönberg composition[...]

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I just thought I'd mention in passing that I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Schoenberg's works lack warmth. So there!

And back to discussion of fancy shmancy food...

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As I was typing that line, I knew you'd have something to say. I'm still trying to work through both modern food and modern music, but I'm not quite there yet.

[raxelita]

Part of the excitement for me of going out to schmancier places, is the possibility that something will be so perfectly composed and in-sync that I will need to pause. For instance, the beet salad at a recent trip to Cafe Bolud just made me forget about everything else for a minute...or a Kobe Tataki that was just so unforgettably smooth at Mecca (SF). When dining out, you are beholden to someone else-- their standards, tastes and whims. The better part of the time my standards, tastes and whims don't match up with the chefs'/restaurants'. But I still search for that moment when it all works, the moment that makes it worth it.

[Nyleve Baar]

True - that last comment. That's exactly what I'm looking for when I go out to eat somewhere special. I don't generally expect an entire meal to be absolutely stunning, but even a single dish that makes me stop in my tracks. It doesn't happen often. In fact, I can probably remember every single time in my life that it HAS happened.

And it's not usually something complicated either. Perfect gnocchi, for instance, has made me go all cross-eyed. Pear and gorgonzola ravioli. Chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemons.

Yeah, I'm into peasant food. No question. Gotta hit me between the eyes like a sledge hammer. Sort of embarassing, I suddenly realize.

[SWISS_CHEF]

True - that last comment. That's exactly what I'm looking for when I go out to eat somewhere special. I don't generally expect an entire meal to be absolutely stunning, but even a single dish that makes me stop in my tracks. It doesn't happen often. In fact, I can probably remember every single time in my life that it HAS happened.

And it's not usually something complicated either. Perfect gnocchi, for instance, has made me go all cross-eyed. Pear and gorgonzola ravioli. Chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemons.

Yeah, I'm into peasant food. No question. Gotta hit me between the eyes like a sledge hammer. Sort of embarassing, I suddenly realize.

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GOD! Someone else gets this stuff!

[touaregsand]

In certain realms of cooking fancy shmancy food isn't even really food anymore. I get the urge, the serious urge to cut a big one in the room when I read most reviews of top tier places. More often it has to do with tone of the writer than the food that is written about. Eeyore was always my least favorite pooh character. Not that pooh is my favorite, there is something disingenuos about him.

Too many chefs these days learn how to talk about their food before they actually learn how to cook, some never even really learn how to cook that well.

Somewhere along the line (I can actually trace this, but choose not to bore anyone here with it). The emphasis on ingredients turned into a wider trend of "shopping not cooking" which I don't have so much a problem with. I had access to better quality stuff in the trade then I do as a retail consumer. The fundementals and basic techniques of good cooking fell out of favor. Technique became extraneous (at least in cookbooks that are monuments to the chef and his restaurant) or it entered the realm of 'science' in a studio, lab or garage. Then there is the food writer who needs new things to write about... that's a whole other topic.

[Nyleve Baar]

I sometimes find myself believing that the ability to cook well is almost bred in the bone - not genetic, exactly, but a deep love that is learned in childhood - infancy, even. When I eat something that really has soul - as someone posted earlier (sorry, I just lose track of names) - I feel like I'm actually contacting the person who made the dish. It's like a telepathic communication. Is this weird?

When I eat high-end restaurant food - highly constructed, ethereal dishes - I very rarely feel that contact. It is purely aesthethic to me. Beautiful, impressive even, but not real. I am not touched where it counts. I swear I'd rather have a single bowl of incredible soup in a grungy hole in the wall cooked by a lunatic wearing a smeared apron than ten dinners where the food is presented in a triangular shape in a pool of some kind of extreme reduction, with individual strands of grass arranged with geometric precision over a splodge of foam. Maybe it tastes fabulous, but then again, maybe it's all smoke and mirrors.

My original post was a slight lament about the fact that the meal I had wasn't even especially competent, never mind impressive. However, just out of sheer curiosity, I plan to go back there sometime to try the regular menu. But in my heart of hearts, I truly believe that the place is extremely overrated and that it's more about hype and cool than about really really good food.

[Chris Amirault]

Nyleve Baar wrote something compelling that got me thinking:

I sometimes find myself believing that the ability to cook well is almost bred in the bone - not genetic, exactly, but a deep love that is learned in childhood - infancy, even. When I eat something that really has soul - as someone posted earlier (sorry, I just lose track of names) - I feel like I'm actually contacting the person who made the dish. It's like a telepathic communication. Is this weird?

When I eat high-end restaurant food - highly constructed, ethereal dishes - I very rarely feel that contact. It is purely aesthethic to me. Beautiful, impressive even, but not real. I am not touched where it counts.

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I'm thinking of a meal I had at Daniel, and another I had at a two-star place, name long forgotten, in the Loire. The excellence of those meals can probably best be described by combining these two sentiments: highly constructed, aesthetically pleasing, and beautiful dishes that exude love, soul, and the reality of solid good food. Having read a bit about what Adria (among others) has to say on these subjects, I believe that this is precisely what he is going for with his cuisine.

[bilrus]

Nyleve Baar wrote something compelling that got me thinking:

I sometimes find myself believing that the ability to cook well is almost bred in the bone - not genetic, exactly, but a deep love that is learned in childhood - infancy, even. When I eat something that really has soul - as someone posted earlier (sorry, I just lose track of names) - I feel like I'm actually contacting the person who made the dish. It's like a telepathic communication. Is this weird?

When I eat high-end restaurant food - highly constructed, ethereal dishes - I very rarely feel that contact. It is purely aesthethic to me. Beautiful, impressive even, but not real. I am not touched where it counts.

←

I'm thinking of a meal I had at Daniel, and another I had at a two-star place, name long forgotten, in the Loire. The excellence of those meals can probably best be described by combining these two sentiments: highly constructed, aesthetically pleasing, and beautiful dishes that exude love, soul, and the reality of solid good food. Having read a bit about what Adria (among others) has to say on these subjects, I believe that this is precisely what he is going for with his cuisine.

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Right - it is the difference between good cooking and bad cooking that we are talking about here. Not the difference between upscale and downscale.

[touaregsand]

I sometimes find myself believing that the ability to cook well is almost bred in the bone - not genetic, exactly, but a deep love that is learned in childhood - infancy, even. When I eat something that really has soul - as someone posted earlier (sorry, I just lose track of names) - I feel like I'm actually contacting the person who made the dish. It's like a telepathic communication. Is this weird?

When I eat high-end restaurant food - highly constructed, ethereal dishes - I very rarely feel that contact. It is purely aesthethic to me. Beautiful, impressive even, but not real. I am not touched where it counts. I swear I'd rather have a single bowl of incredible soup in a grungy hole in the wall cooked by a lunatic wearing a smeared apron than ten dinners where the food is presented in a triangular shape in a pool of some kind of extreme reduction, with individual strands of grass arranged with geometric precision over a splodge of foam. Maybe it tastes fabulous, but then again, maybe it's all smoke and mirrors.

My original post was a slight lament about the fact that the meal I had wasn't even especially competent, never mind impressive. However, just out of sheer curiosity, I plan to go back there sometime to try the regular menu. But in my heart of hearts, I truly believe that the place is extremely overrated and that it's more about hype and cool than about really really good food.

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You touch on a lot of that things that are of personal and professional interest to me.

Yes, the ability to cook is bred in the bone- not genetic. My husband was the only one of 7 children who was deeply attached to his mother's kitchen. My 6 year old knows right away when I switch brands of somen noodles on her. My 2 year old knows where everything is in pantry and refrigerator. He enjoys trips to the grocery store more than the toy store. I was the same way. We are all good with our hands and are usually doing something with them whether it's writing, drawing, painting, sculpting or cooking.

Sensing a sort of telepathic communication is not weird at all. Great food speaks to our hearts and souls. My choice of words is perhaps a bit corny, but these words come up again and again. The soul of the dish. The soul of the chef. Cooking with heart. Touching hearts with food... I've seen it time and time again, emotional, visceral responses to great cooking. Customers or students after eating a meal or taking a class have blurted out "I love you" to the chef. Given the tendency to respond exuberantly to such food, it's not surprising that when food is percieved to be lacking in "heart and soul" the response is one of sterile detachment.

The problem of highly constructed dishes for some is that they are not really cooked, more than they are composed through a process of assembly line cooking. A euphamisim might to call the factory line process a studio, a lab or garage. Yes, I do realize it's more than a euphamism because a studio, lab or garage imply tinkering, experimentation, creativity, art... In order for the highly constructed, ethereal and heart, soul, love, good cooking to meet- a chef usually needs a huge, highly trained staff and an investor with deep, gilded pockets for money losing investment in hopes of building the brand name of the chef. So that the brand name can be marketed with more casual ventures, cookbooks, TV shows... and the chef is eventually seen has losing his heart and soul by shilling knives or putting his face on a box of frozen pizza.

But in my heart of hearts, I truly believe that the place is extremely overrated and that it's more about hype and cool than about really really good food.

I believe that about alot of places, upscale and downscale.

[sizzleteeth]

I’d say the one major and possibly greatest advantage that restaurant environments hold is also their greatest disadvantage… elementary math.

Disadvantage: Sheer number of courses and people to be served.

Say a restaurant seats 60 and has tasting menus of 8, 10 and 12 courses respectively and let’s say they have 2 seatings over a 4 hour period from 6 to 10 pm – we’ll take the median number and say each person gets 10 dishes.

So that’s 120 people x 10 dishes = 1200 dishes

1200 dishes divided by 4 hours = 300 dishes an hour

300 dishes divided by 60 minutes = 5 dishes per minute, 1 dish every 12 seconds

Which means there must be at least 5 cooks plating for 1 entire minute to be spent plating your dish.

Throw in all the ingredient prep and items that must be prepared over the course of the day and items that must be prepared at the time at plating for those 1200 dishes and cleaning up after all of it – you have one hell of a day.

Not much real care (in terms of what you would put in at home) can be taken at this speed.

Many restaurants do much, much, much more than this in terms of covers and number of dishes – but not over much more time, I’d say my numbers are actually below the average in the tasting menu category.

Advantage: Sheer number of people working in the kitchen and volume handled by equipment.

It’s not uncommon for 10 to 15 people to be in a kitchen, which is 15 pairs of hands and 15 minds and 15 sets of eyes – which makes some things (at this speed) not really possible to do at home. Though one could do just about anything that can be done in a restaurant at home provided they have the equipment and the skill – it would just take more time.

Don’t forget that a few people, at a much slower pace, created most of the dishes you’re eating. Then documented them to the smallest detail so that they can be mass-produced at break neck speed with as much accuracy as possible at said speed. That would even go for the ice cream you bought at Jewel.

Equipment is a huge factor in speed and by virtue of its design sometimes produces things that would be difficult to reproduce at home. If you’ve ever looked at the blade on a Vita-Prep vs. a consumer blender you’ll understand why it can puree just about anything 3 times as fast and smoother than you can with your Cuisinart, if you’ve ever read through the directions on the PacoJet website you’d know you can just drop whole ingredients into a canister – freeze them and then push a button and it will shave them into a sorbet with a texture you could not reproduce in an ice cream maker at home. Your burner is going to take much longer to bring a million quart stock-pot to a simmer and struggle to keep it there, etc.

So I think the main advantages and disadvantages of both home and restaurant cooking are the same. Volume and speed (people and equipment) is a restaurant's greatest advantage and disadvantage - lack of volume and speed (people and equipment) are a home cook’s greatest advantage and disadvantage. It all depends on the context.

Access to ingredients, skill, money and resources are arguable – some home cooks have all of these things on near equal footing with restaurants – some do not.

{edit}:

Then again - somebody is keeping Cuisine Solutions in business.

Edited May 10, 2005 by sizzleteeth (log)

[chefzadi]

Nyleve-

You aren't impressed with fancy schmany food because you haven't tasted my cooking. I'd describe my cooking like a grandmother who is a professional French chef with a little North African soul thrown in.

Aside from the North African soul part I think the most endearing thing about Lyon is it's long ago tradition of Les Meres. I've said it before, but I can't resist "Lyon is the gastronomic center of France". Of course Algeria is the gastronomic center of the world.

[godito]

I think it's good to separate things.

1. your dining experience was bad. I agree. And I honestly believe the restaurant in question is over-hyped. We live in an era where chefs have become good marketers (just tune in to the food network) but they're not that good. You can give it a second chance, I believe everybody deserves one, but I wouldn't count on a better dining experience. It seems to me that the chef made poor choices for the function, and he probably does the same for the everyday menu.

2. "fancy" food has bad rep and I don't believe in it. Like somebody else said on an earlier post, Daniel Boloud is doing the same food as some really good bistros in france. So, then, why does he charge so much? Well, for one, we let him (supply and demand); but also, expenses in NYC are high, importing products form all over and buying from top suppliers isn't cheap. He also has the salaries of a staff of over 50. Bistros ususally are family operations.

3. Home food is usually better than any restaurant food because we cook (with love) for the ones we love AND according to they preferences. When my Mom (still the best cook I know) cooks for us, she won't use olives (My dad and I don't like them), no couliflower (my brother don't like it) and very spicy. Now, I'm a good cook, and I cook at home and professionaly. I love to go out to eat because I get to see what other chefs are doing, and because sometimes they impress me. But they do with ideas. Like you said, I know how to do rissotto and I know how to cook lobster, but the last time I went out to a "fancy" restaurant, I was served a perfectly cooked rissotto with lobster, and I loved it. Simple and good.

I guess I'm trying to say that peasant food can also be found in upscale restaurants... in fact some of them are the only ones still serving some of the peasant food from the days of my grandparents (like tripe and head cheese), and they have the time and equipment to do a good job... but don't expect every "fancy" restaurant to be as good as you expect it to be... and don't compare it with home cooking, as they are both two different worlds (I won't go into this as some earlier posts did a great job)

[Nyleve Baar]

Godito -

Yes. To everything. I am for sure a bumpkin, and don't go out to eat often. And when I do, it's usually to some funky hole in the wall I found perversely interesting. So there was a part of me that imagines a whole world of experience out there to which I am not privy. Turns out sometimes true, sometimes not. And it also turns out that I may just like the ambiance and quirkiness of the less mainstream undiscovered gems when I go out to eat.

And, as has been pointed out, I agree that restaurants may not always be the best places to eat wonderful food. Love and soul are what I appreciate in a meal - and you can't really buy that element.

It's ok. I'm over the disappointment now. In fact, going out to dinner tonight. Not expecting miracles, but hoping for at least a good bottle of wine and something nice to eat.

[godito]

Godito -

Yes. To everything. I am for sure a bumpkin, and don't go out to eat often. And when I do, it's usually to some funky hole in the wall I found perversely interesting. So there was a part of me that imagines a whole world of experience out there to which I am not privy. Turns out sometimes true, sometimes not. And it also turns out that I may just like the ambiance and quirkiness of the less mainstream undiscovered gems when I go out to eat.

And, as has been pointed out, I agree that restaurants may not always be the best places to eat wonderful food. Love and soul are what I appreciate in a meal - and you can't really buy that element.

It's ok. I'm over the disappointment now. In fact, going out to dinner tonight. Not expecting miracles, but hoping for at least a good bottle of wine and something nice to eat.

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and don't forget good company and estimulating conversation

but I wasn't talking to you alone, but to everybody that has read and will read this topic... good food is what you make of it. I know people who are more interested in presentation, or volume, or speed, rather than the actual flavor of food. btw, if you're wondering, in what I just said, I hve no point

[SobaAddict70]

We had lunch at The Sea Grill today and while it was quite good, I was thinking in retrospect how someone who, unused to fine dining, might have been underwhelmed by what we were served today especially in regards to price point.

Fat Guy, in one of his treatises elsewhere, one mentioned that on any given plate of food, there can be as many as ten or more components that go into building that seminal moment of culinary pleasure. That certainly was the case in much of what I had today. (Click here to view a description.) That plate of seared yellowfin tuna? It's listed as $35 on the menu, no doubt in part because of those nuggets of foie. And while I saw the value on the plate and appreciated how and why it cost that much, I'm sure there are those who might not.

I'm reminded of this thread and another post in a past Q&A with Chef Marco Canora of Hearth restaurant:

I know you said that you weren't talking about compromising the quality of ingredients, but the quality versus quantity conflict is an on-going issue for me. Ultimately, I want guests to perceive that they are getting a good value when they come to my restaurant for dinner, and an easy way for a guest to perceive value is based on the quantity of food they see in front of them. It is much harder for some of them to perceive the quality of the ingredients they are eating. For example, one night a few weeks ago, a man approached me to complain about the size of his tuna appetizer. What he did not realize is that he was getting the best quality tuna there is--the stuff all the best sushi restaurants use. To him, that didn't matter; he would have been happier with 8 ounces of mediocre fish. But for those kind of people, I will never compromise. They can go elsewhere if they want to eat large portions of a crappy fish.

So, when you go out to eat with your friends, your spouse, your significant other or whomever, do you ever encounter this attitude, as in "They served me this giant bowl with such a niggardly amount of food. Remind me why I'm being charged X $ for this?"

Soba