Alison Cook Reviews laidback manor

[Bill Miller]

Alison Cook trashed the resteraunt today in the Chronicle. I never cared for her (him?) anyway. Too gushy about her favorites while even ignoring others.

[Kevin72]

That's too bad. Still, I wouldn't say it was a trashing, since she does seem to geniuinely be interested in improvements being made and even said she hopes for him to succeed at the end there.

When do we get Walsh to go?

[JetLag]

Walsh has probably been, Cook usually follows him.

[greensNbeans]

Im thrilled with the review! Nobody is perfect, and we only strive to get better everyday. The only item that I found a little far fetched was the comparisin to large budget restaurants like Alinea, Avenues, and wd. Im just a small town kid doing what I believe in!!!!! I look forward to her return! Don't worry about us, we are all smiles!!!!!!!!

ps - we are making t shirts with a "no fryolater" symbol on the back and a "teddy bear" on the front ...anyone interested?

[Kevin72]

Review Link:

Laidback Manor Review

[FoodMan]

Let’s be realistic here, laidback manor is aiming high. It is not making “safe food” for a mass audience. It’s ideals are El Bulli, Alinea, Moto, WD-50….that is no secret. So, for Cook to draw a comparison between “lbm” and these establishments is understandable. What these restaurants do is difficult and juggling many highly involved courses all done pitch perfect is a feat. I am still amazed at how easy everything seemed at El Bulli when we dined there last year, but one visit to the kitchen and seeing it’s LARGE staff at work, confirmed that it is anything but. With that being said Cook’s review is not all bad, and her complaints can be summarized by these points:

1- Bad fry job

2- Inconsistency from the kitchen, a very good dinner in January and a bad lunch later….

3- Odd Combinations of food

Every critic has his or her own pet peeves, Cook as far as I can tell usually has two. The first one is “sweet food”, other than dessert of course. At a place like “lbm”, she is on here own because altering the diner’s perception of where a sweet course might appear is a major part of the formula of the cuisine. I wonder if she ever ate at Alinea or WD, doesn’t seem like it. If she does, I am not sure she will like it much either. She seems to me, from tons of reviews I’ve read by her, like a traditionalist.

Her other pet peeve it the greasy, soggy or otherwise imperfect fried food. Since she mentioned it more than once, I doubt that she is imagining it and on more than one occasion. There really is no excuse for any restaurant, especially one at this level, to serve bad fried items. This might be a problem Chef Rucker and team need to work on and it does not sound too difficult to fix.

Inconsistency happens at new restaurants while kinks are still being worked out, and it is my opinion that a restaurant should not be reviewed until it has been up and running for a good six months.

Personally, I like to formulate my own opinions about restaurants and I am still planning on giving the manor a visit. Hopefully the fryolator is in a better condition .

[SuperLuckyCat]

This review made me want to go try it since I am someone looking for something challenging and appreciate the effort to make Houston more cutting-edge in the restaurant scene.

Not to sound elitist, but the customer segment it probably affected negatively wouldn't have gone there anyway (on purpose) and if they had, they would have been a pain in the a$$ to deal with or they would have immediately written in to Whine & Dine about how the manager didn't come and personally great them and give them a complementary flourless chocolate cake with "Happy Anniversary" written in chocolate syrup around the edge and their reservation wasn't honored within 5 seconds of arrival, etc , etc.

Hopefully crazy foodies will start coming out of the woodwork....

Good luck greenbean man! And see you soon!

[Kent Wang]

Hopefully crazy foodies will start coming out of the woodwork....

←

If anything, the review may alert adventurous but out-of-the-loop foodies to the existence of the restaurant. I'm gonna go one of these days.

[greensNbeans]

Cheers everyone! Nice to hear. Fry-o-later is on hold for a while, or at least till we figure out how to fry???????????? Im glad to hear this great opinions of the reveiw and of the restaurant. Hope to see yall soon!

ps- The Grand Wine & Food Festival was great last night, tons of people! My favorite quote of evening, and I heard it a lot, "wow, that actually taste great!" I served milk chocolate & foie gras "milkshakes", licorice smoked atlantic salmon w/ vanilla foam, LN2 frozen watermelon-aged maple syrup-extra virgin olive oil on a stick! It was a lot of fun!

Edited April 29, 2006 by greensNbeans (log)

[Jay Francis]

Well, I just read Allison's article and I didn't come away from it as "trashing the restaurant". It seemed like a pretty balanced review to me. I guess I will make it over to laidback soon, although I think I'd have more fun doing prep work in the kitchen than being out in the front of the house as a diner.

I'm like this. I have a Global chef's knife. But I only bring out the Global when I'm teaching a cooking class and want to impress. Daily, I default to my $30 Dexter Chinese cleaver that Dorothy Huang turned me on to about 2 decades ago. Still sharp as a razor (thank you, Sur La Table knife sharpening machine!). I have trouble enjoying fancy shmancy food. I can appreciate the work that went into it but.........

But now, I know that I have to try laidback. Let's see what magic they do with all their little food techniques.

There's a story that I've been quoting for ages now. Robert Sietsema told me this one when we were buddies back at UT (and here he is, these years later, restaurant critic at the Village Voice).

Apparently when T.S. Elliot was working on The Wasteland, he created a section in the poem that was in the style of John Milton. He asked Ezra Pound to have a look at it. Which he did. Ezra sends back a note to Elliot.

"Don't parody Milton unless you can write better poetry than Milton.

Which you can't."

So, we'll have to see what is what at laidback, innovation or emulation?

Edited May 1, 2006 by Jay Francis (log)

[Kevin72]

Actually, to add a counterpoint, when we went there in March the miniature Monte Cristos were a standout, perfectly, delicately crisp. My eyes lit up when they said they do a little plate of these for lunch. And, too, the sous vide(sp?) fish we had was delictable and moist.

But, good on you, Chef Rucker, for taking these comments in stride and taking steps to put the matter right.

[greensNbeans]

Actually, to add a counterpoint, when we went there in March the miniature Monte Cristos were a standout, perfectly, delicately crisp.  My eyes lit up when they said they do a little plate of these for lunch.  And, too, the sous vide(sp?) fish we had was delictable and moist. 

But, good on you, Chef Rucker, for taking these comments in stride and taking steps to put the matter right.

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I feel that I have no other choice. I feel that it simply one person's opinion, who happens to write for the fourth largest city in the nations highest circulated publication in the city, but that's it!

Thanks for the support, Kevin!

[jscarbor]

Hey Greens, I will come soon. I almost hit your place the other day but couldn't get enough time to do it. I see here you are open for lunch, that might be the best time for me. What do you offer at lunch? Should I just look on website?

Great tude to take about Cook review, it wasn't a bad review just not glowing. I wont let her deter me though.

[Richard Kilgore]

Congratulations, Chef Rucker. I don't think this was a bad review at all. I think it will stir interest from those in whom interest can be stirred, as seen on this thread. Allison Cook seems to like you and wants to like the food. She is a fine reviewer who is capable of writing reviews that sing. Like any reviewer of anything, she writes from a personal perspective that is subjective as much as objective. Being compared to Alinea, Avenues and wd is not the worst thing in the world for "a small town kid". Your gracious response to her review speaks well of you.

[molto e]

Chef,

Follow your passion and good things will come! I wonder what the writers personal preference for the avant-garde may be?

"What that means, here, is lots of high-tech powders and foams and nitrogen-frozen thises and frothed thats. Outré little pickles. Counterintuitive flavors of ice cream. Odd-sounding combinations of ingredients. Obligatory pop-culture jokes: a rarefied Tater Tot here, a Dr Pepper-braised rib there"

This part of the interview seems to me to have a negative slant on the genre. If I get down your way, laidback manor is a must.

Good Luck,

Molto E

[greensNbeans]

Oh yeah, did anyone see the latest "Houston, modern luxury" magazine? They did a peice on me in the back and they asked me about my "hots & nots" and I listed egullet.com as a "hot" on my list - check it out!