So Long

[The Chefs Office]

Not sure if anyone saw this (or it's been posted before) with being caught up in the festive season:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/good-living/bon...4236028253.html

[Rachel Perlow]

Great Australian produce is often a furphy

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we don't have the world's best produce. Seafood, yes. Some meats. Cheese? Cream? Fruit and veg? No way. If restaurants were serious about produce, they'd have John Bignall's sheep's milk blue and Billawarra dairy yoghurt. They'd have Springfield sparkling mineral water from Tasmania rather than mostly dodgy imports. I've had white truffles months out of season and cherries in our finest eateries that aren't as good as the ones I get from my local greengrocer. Show me a chef who uses 20-ounce apples or hand plucked ducks or who has a kitchen garden and I'll show you 4000 who don't.

This is a confusing paragraph, I attempted to highlight the portions I was to cite, but it was half of it! If they were serious about produce, they'd have high end dairy??? Is this something particular about Australian English that I'm not getting? That is, using the word "produce" to mean all ingredient sourcing?

[The Chefs Office]

Great Australian produce is often a furphy

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we don't have the world's best produce. Seafood, yes. Some meats. Cheese? Cream? Fruit and veg? No way. If restaurants were serious about produce, they'd have John Bignall's sheep's milk blue and Billawarra dairy yoghurt. They'd have Springfield sparkling mineral water from Tasmania rather than mostly dodgy imports. I've had white truffles months out of season and cherries in our finest eateries that aren't as good as the ones I get from my local greengrocer. Show me a chef who uses 20-ounce apples or hand plucked ducks or who has a kitchen garden and I'll show you 4000 who don't.

This is a confusing paragraph, I attempted to highlight the portions I was to cite, but it was half of it! If they were serious about produce, they'd have high end dairy??? Is this something particular about Australian English that I'm not getting? That is, using the word "produce" to mean all ingredient sourcing?

←

Hi Rachel, yes it's an Aussie thing.

My time in the US had me understanding produce meant only things that grew from the ground.

Down here, it has a much broader application.

[Adam Balic]

Made perfect sense to me .

I think that "produce" = things from the ground, is specically an American English thing, after all produce just means something that is "produced", but surely the meaning is clear from the context and content of the article?

Actually, the thing that most non-Australians would not get is "Furphy".

Edited January 17, 2006 by Adam Balic (log)

[Rachel Perlow]

Actually, the thing that most non-Australians would get is "Furphy".

←

Would or wouldn't get? I just assumed it was indicating "not good." Is there something more?

[Adam Balic]

"would not". now edited thanks.

Furphy means "a false report or rumour or an absurd story". Furphy was a blacksmith engineer that produced famous water-carts, the ends of which were stamped with morality lessons.

During WWI Australian soldiers would gather around the Furphy water cart to gossip and spread rumours - hence the meaning of a "Furphy".

So an example of a Furphy would be "Britain is now the foodie destination, with excellent seafood resturants in every coastal village".

[Julian Teoh]

What do we think of Simon Thomsen's reviewing style?

Personally, I think he should put down the thesaurus. This is Thomsen on affogato: "an expensive exercise in ONANISM that pervades numerous menus." This was probably the first time I had to consult my dictionary after reading a food review, as opposed to Larousse or books of that ilk.

I wasn't too taken by Matthew Evans's style either, but at least he had the courage to call a spade a spade, or in this case, a wank.

And Thomsen's "joke" yesterday about LSD and Byron Bay just sailed some five feet over my head.

Come back Terry, all is forgiven.

Edited January 18, 2006 by Julian Teoh (log)

[The Chefs Office]

Honestly, I've never been a fan of the whole "foo foo" air kissing side of the Sydney scene.

But, I guess that's what the readers/average punter's/friday/saturday night diners like.

[PCL]

Well, TCO, come and eat here for a bit... we are planning to do some eG lunches/dinners in the very near future.

I think Melbourne needs someone like an Evans!

[The Chefs Office]

Don't worry, I let you know when I'm heading down for sure!

F1 is looking quite likely this year, although I imagine it will be a complete zoo at that time of year.

[Shinboners]

Reading the topic heading, I thought that the Chefs Office was going to say goodbye to eGullet.

Thankfully, it was only Matt Evans moving on from reviewing restaurants.

[The Chefs Office]

Sadly, I'm going nowhere fast!

[Adam Balic]

I have no problem with "ONANISM" ( ), but I think that many readers would object to the restaurant scene been called 'expensive excessive wankery..'.

Surely you have heard of Onanism? What about about the joke, "Why did the man call his budgie "Onan"? Because he kept spilling his seed on the ground". No? Well I guess we must get different Christmas crackers.

Edited January 18, 2006 by Adam Balic (log)

[The Chefs Office]

but I think that many readers would object to the restaurant scene been called 'expensive excessive wankery..'.

←

Probably.

Wouldn't make this statement wrong though

[Shinboners]

What do we think of Simon Thomsen's reviewing style?

Personally, I think he should put down the thesaurus.  This is Thomsen on affogato: "an expensive exercise in ONANISM that pervades numerous menus."  This was probably the first time I had to consult my dictionary after reading a food review, as opposed to Larousse or books of that ilk.

And Thomsen's "joke" yesterday about LSD and Byron Bay just sailed some five feet over my head.

←

This bloke sounds like a culinary version of those gits on the Movie Show. You know the ones I'm talking about - they spend about five minutes talking and yet you learn nothing about what the movie was about, whether it was any good, or what sort of audience would enjoy the picture. However, they did let you know that they had a vastly superior knowledge of films and a far bigger vocabulary than us hicks sitting on the couch.

Sometimes too much education can be a very bad thing.

[The Chefs Office]

To begin with, I wasn't such a masive fan of Grandad and the Ewok from The Movie Show but it was bearable.

Now that the poser school is in place, there is just no way I can watch it.

But hey, I guess they are the ones with their own TV show.

I'm just some stooge.

8+)

[PCL]

So what do we think about the Melbourne reviewers then, now that we're on the topic?

Preston, Lethlean et al.

I find that sometimes, there's too much personal rumination going on in the Melbourne columns. A lot of me, me, me, how i feel dum dee dah. But to be fair, there isn't much fluff that I can think of. But the description of cutlery in one particular place and how it enhances the experience, well, it's going into lifestyle reporting rather than the issue at hand, or in the plate rather.

[Julian Teoh]

I find that sometimes, there's too much personal rumination going on in the Melbourne columns. A lot of me, me, me, how i feel dum dee dah. But to be fair, there isn't much fluff that I can think of. But the description of cutlery in one particular place and how it enhances the experience, well, it's going into lifestyle reporting rather than the issue at hand, or in the plate rather.

←

I think a critique of cutlery is appropriate in a food review., depending on the context. I'll take the old Balzac at Randwick as an example. The food was superlative and the cutlery was ordinary to the extent of almost being inconvenient eg eating skate with a giant blunt knife. If no comments were made on the cutlery, you might well expect that the attention to detail that was lavished on the food was similarly laid on with the cutlery, tablecloths etc etc ad nauseum and that simply was not the case. Balzac was, to a greater extent then than now in my view, a great value place with great food but less solid on the trimmings.

Although if the food is dodgy to begin with, then obviously no cutlery can save the place from sliding into restaurant hell.

For the record, I think your reviewers down south beat ours (Sydney's) black and blue since Terry Durack left for England (and Durack was orginally from Melbourne as well if memory serves).

[PCL]

Fine, if in context, I agree. But to spend a paragraph on the fitout and how much it cost, and how expensive the cutlery is, and in this case, for a 3 hat restaurant, well, you could perhaps interpret it as pandering.

Durack I like. Read him every week whilst living in London.

[Julian Teoh]

Fine, if in context, I agree. But to spend a paragraph on the fitout and how much it cost, and how expensive the cutlery is, and in this case, for a 3 hat restaurant, well, you could perhaps interpret it as pandering.

Durack I like. Read him every week whilst living in London.

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Someone's got to justify charging $50 for a main course

[Shinboners]

I find that sometimes, there's too much personal rumination going on in the Melbourne columns. A lot of me, me, me, how i feel dum dee dah. But to be fair, there isn't much fluff that I can think of.

←

I think a degree of personal context is needed. Certainly a good dinner can lift the spirits, and by the same token, a great day can end up with a downer due to lousy food and crap service. The personal ruminations certainly shouldn't crop up through a review, but a bit at the beginning and at the end is usually worthwhile in assisting in the perspective of an experience. In a few of my recent reviews, I made comments about how the staff and other diners reacted to us having a baby in tow, and whilst that situation wouldn't apply to many diners, it would still be of interest to some. Not only that, how the staff handle the issue of a baby reflects on their professionalism.

[PCL]

By all means personal content such as issues relevant to the reviewer/visitor, such as your (Shin's) concerns about baby-friendliness, but you can go too far. I don't have an issue with personal content, just when there's too much with no qualification or little relevance.

[Shinboners]

By all means personal content such as issues relevant to the reviewer/visitor, such as your (Shin's) concerns about baby-friendliness, but you can go too far. I don't have an issue with personal content, just when there's too much with no qualification or little relevance.

←

There was one Lethlean review last year where he wrote about taking his daugther and one of her friends to a dinner at Cafe di Stasio. He did write with plenty of personal information (especially about the kids), but in the context of the review, I thought it worked pretty well. It's not something you would want to read every week, but for looking at fine dining restaurants from a family perspective, it was a refreshing change. The only fault I could find is that both kids seemed to be well versed in the world of restaurants, so their experience probably wouldn't be typical of most diners. But then again, he's a well known reviewer, so it's debatable how much his evenings would match that of us mug punters.

[jango]

Preston, Lethlean et al.

I find that sometimes, there's too much personal rumination going on in the Melbourne columns. A lot of me, me, me, how i feel dum dee dah. But to be fair, there isn't much fluff that I can think of.

Totally agree. Waaaay too much about the reviewer.

And is it an Aussie thing that the reviewer is so well known in the restaurants? Doesn't this negate the concept of an objective review? I really appreciated the American reviewers and how they'd take such care not to be identifiable as a reviewer. Much more credible..

What I'd like to see is review by committee, like they do movie reviews on the telly.

The Lethlean review of Cafe di Stasio had me stunned. He had a completely contrasting experience to my dear friends who went in good faith that they could eat well there.