After a fairly pathetic effort to get into PBT (I'm not totally convinced by a bar one enters through a secret door in a mediumly good hot dog stand, but I didn't get in, so I'll pass on making a judgement), my girlfriend and I ended up at Death + Company on Friday night, an intentionally old style bar that has recently gotten some good press (see here). We decided to start off with a martini, and sat bemused as our bartender flew around, breaking apart blocks of ice with some sort of pick, pouring other kinds of ice in and out of various cups, tasting, and mixing. A few minutes later, we had two pretty startling martinis, my girlfriend's with a little squeeze of orange bitters, and a generous second helping hanging out in an ice bath in front of us. We sipped happily, and devoured a very passable hot crab dip that I ordered to try to make amends for some atrocious fries I bought while we were waiting to try to get into PBT. When the bartender came back to clear things away, I just told him to make me something archaic, since I don't know anything about drinks anyway. He whirled about again and presented something made with rye, some twists, something red, and some other things, which was really wonderful. My girlfriend, for her part, stuck with gin, and asking for something with mint, got a wonderful South Side. (I'm not claiming the link is the recipe they used, but you get the idea).
Above all, Death is a comfortable bar with moderately loud music, and a vibe that's acceptable even for someone who dislikes bars, and trendy places even more. Highly recommended.
5/10/2008
5/09/2008
Gordon Ramsay gets too excited
I see that Gordon Ramsay has proposed banning out of season ingredients in restaurants. I can't take such an effort all too seriously - I'd especially love to be in on the committee that gets to decide which restaurants have to abide by the "law", or when seasons start, or what to do with frozen vegetables, or what people are supposed to eat in places where they only get potatoes - but it sparks the question in my mind as to whether there is any, or whether there should be any, constitutional limit on how much the government can regulate cooking. Isn't cooking an expressive outlet? What if New York city banned cooking with butter in a commercial kitchen? Or banned Romanian food?
A restaurant experiment
For the last couple of weeks, I've been watching a veritable living experiment in my neighborhood. Without naming names, about a month ago, a mediocre Chinese restaurant that had abruptly closed down reappeared as a new sushi/hibachi bar. Rugged Astorians, included ourselves, trooped there for the restaurant's grand opening and in the days immediately afterwards. We thought the place was awful. Our sushi was tasteless. The vegetable tempura was so greasy that it tasted as if they had dipped it back into the frying oil as a sort of dressing after it cooled, and they made two different mistakes in our service, which was remarkable because we only ordered two things.
Everyone else apparently agreed with out assessment. Poor reviews poured into the local Astoria chat rooms, dismissing the place for its wretched service, bad food, high prices, and puzzlingly dark interior. The result is a total massacre. The restaurant is empty. There's now a sign advertising Chinese food again outside. And it's still dark. We estimate the place has another month of life left.
The obvious lesson is that the New York restaurant market is highly efficient. That is to say, it rapidly aggregates knowledge about a restaurant, and brutally punishes underachievement. The more subtle correlary to this all is that I am now more convinced than ever that a large part of the superiority of French bread is an equally efficient market in baguettes in Paris. Just like for our nameless Astorian sushi hut, the typical pattern in Paris is for a boulangerie to open, pioneers to test, and then spread the word, after which the boulangerie either collapses entirely or has lines out the door. Fixing your reputation after that first wave, I suspect, is extremely difficult. Just like in every other industry, these ceaseless churning has, over years, created a tremendous, seemingly inexplicable, bread superiority in Paris over almost anyone. By contrast, very mediocre bakeries survive in New York routinely, and mostly because they are not expelled by the market as they would be in Paris. Hence, the gap in bread between the two cities.
Everyone else apparently agreed with out assessment. Poor reviews poured into the local Astoria chat rooms, dismissing the place for its wretched service, bad food, high prices, and puzzlingly dark interior. The result is a total massacre. The restaurant is empty. There's now a sign advertising Chinese food again outside. And it's still dark. We estimate the place has another month of life left.
The obvious lesson is that the New York restaurant market is highly efficient. That is to say, it rapidly aggregates knowledge about a restaurant, and brutally punishes underachievement. The more subtle correlary to this all is that I am now more convinced than ever that a large part of the superiority of French bread is an equally efficient market in baguettes in Paris. Just like for our nameless Astorian sushi hut, the typical pattern in Paris is for a boulangerie to open, pioneers to test, and then spread the word, after which the boulangerie either collapses entirely or has lines out the door. Fixing your reputation after that first wave, I suspect, is extremely difficult. Just like in every other industry, these ceaseless churning has, over years, created a tremendous, seemingly inexplicable, bread superiority in Paris over almost anyone. By contrast, very mediocre bakeries survive in New York routinely, and mostly because they are not expelled by the market as they would be in Paris. Hence, the gap in bread between the two cities.
5/07/2008
Momofuku Ko Spreadsheet
I don't really know whether to be intensely irritated by Momofuku Ko or intrigued (for those not in the dubious "know", Ko is a 12 seat restaurant serving some sort of uncategorizable cuisine via an impenetrable internet reservation system that has the New York food press in a giant, giant, tizzy), but this spreadsheet comparing the major food critic's descriptions of each of Ko's standard courses is brilliant. (HT: Eater)
And yes, I am trying to get Momofuku reservations, more out of curiosity and a healthy respect for Chang's marketing genius than out of any overwhelming desire to eat shavings of a frozen foie gras torchon, or cereal infused panna cotta. Question: In five years, is Momofuku Ko the subject of slightly embarassed nostalgia? I say yes.
And yes, I am trying to get Momofuku reservations, more out of curiosity and a healthy respect for Chang's marketing genius than out of any overwhelming desire to eat shavings of a frozen foie gras torchon, or cereal infused panna cotta. Question: In five years, is Momofuku Ko the subject of slightly embarassed nostalgia? I say yes.
5/06/2008
I am bad at faces
I was standing next to someone pretty darned famous this morning in an elevator, and literally had no idea, except that I noticed their face was exceptionally symmetrical. It's not that I hadn't heard of the person, or had never seen them on TV, or didn't roughly know what they looked like. My brain just has a terrible time comparing the particular face I'm presented with against its stores of names, and nothing clicked until the frantic chattering when he/she left the elevator.
I beat the same dead horse yet again
I hate to keep hammering away at the same topic, but Ezra Klein recently returned yet again to his theory that expensive meat would make us all healthier (for my previous forays, see here and here ). He continues to be super-duper wrong.
The problem I think, is that he has decided that food is somewhat like petrol. So, if the price of gas (meat) rises, then people will either live closer to their jobs (grains) or will use public transport (fish, fruits, vegetables). What he doesn't seem to understand is that in the food arena, one has the choice to fill one's car with ultra cheap sub premium (doritos) that makes your car go really fast (tasty!) for a short time before breaking down (fat). And if you really push on prices, people are going to start putting coal in their cars (vat grown meat).
UPDATE: What's the real answer to the problem, you might ask? I don't know, but my guess is continue to value growth, make people richer, and then hope that people pick good food as a main aspirational goal, like getting a big television. In the meantime, we need to keep producing food to feed people, while ameliorating, to the extent we can, the worst aspects of industrial production.
The problem I think, is that he has decided that food is somewhat like petrol. So, if the price of gas (meat) rises, then people will either live closer to their jobs (grains) or will use public transport (fish, fruits, vegetables). What he doesn't seem to understand is that in the food arena, one has the choice to fill one's car with ultra cheap sub premium (doritos) that makes your car go really fast (tasty!) for a short time before breaking down (fat). And if you really push on prices, people are going to start putting coal in their cars (vat grown meat).
UPDATE: What's the real answer to the problem, you might ask? I don't know, but my guess is continue to value growth, make people richer, and then hope that people pick good food as a main aspirational goal, like getting a big television. In the meantime, we need to keep producing food to feed people, while ameliorating, to the extent we can, the worst aspects of industrial production.
5/04/2008
Saturday Night
We were both feeling a little protein deficient recently, so I decided to make some steak for dinner. Since we don't eat beef all that often, and steak even more rarely, I thought some good USDA Prime beef (as people repeat endlessly on TV shows, Prime is less than 2% of all beef graded by the USDA - the best beef most supermarkets stock is one grade lower, Choice) would be a tasty move.*
Now, I don't normally like America's Test Kitchen recipes. Their exact proportions, instructions, and hints strike me as just so much paint by the numbers. I like my food to seem like food rather than a chemistry experiment, and I'm willing to give up some exactitude to get there. In any case, it always baffles when they measure out salt or pepper into a recipe by the teaspoon. I understand the importance of measures in baking, and obviously, if you're trying to scale up a 4 person savory recipe to 300 for a military mess or some such, I understand that exact measures might be useful. But cooking for your family? How about you taste the food instead?
But anyway, watching the show last week, they did have an idea which made sense. I've always had trouble cooking steak so that the crust is crunchy and caramelized, and yet the inside is a good medium well. If you go with the high heat method, the outside chars nicely, but the inside is bloody, which I like but others do not. And if you turn down the heat, you get grey crust. Their idea to help this problem is to put the meat into the oven at 225 fahrenheit for 20 minutes. This brings up the internal temperature so that when your char is done, the meat is medium well too. I tried the technique, and as I think anyone would agree, the results were positive.
And yes, that's girlfriend's real camera, not my Iphone. It turns out to make a difference.
* Yes, yes. Prime beef is corn fattened, not grass. Grass is better. But USDA corn fed prime is a different food, and though not as healthy, has its own special flavor profile a lot of people like.
Now, I don't normally like America's Test Kitchen recipes. Their exact proportions, instructions, and hints strike me as just so much paint by the numbers. I like my food to seem like food rather than a chemistry experiment, and I'm willing to give up some exactitude to get there. In any case, it always baffles when they measure out salt or pepper into a recipe by the teaspoon. I understand the importance of measures in baking, and obviously, if you're trying to scale up a 4 person savory recipe to 300 for a military mess or some such, I understand that exact measures might be useful. But cooking for your family? How about you taste the food instead?
But anyway, watching the show last week, they did have an idea which made sense. I've always had trouble cooking steak so that the crust is crunchy and caramelized, and yet the inside is a good medium well. If you go with the high heat method, the outside chars nicely, but the inside is bloody, which I like but others do not. And if you turn down the heat, you get grey crust. Their idea to help this problem is to put the meat into the oven at 225 fahrenheit for 20 minutes. This brings up the internal temperature so that when your char is done, the meat is medium well too. I tried the technique, and as I think anyone would agree, the results were positive.
And yes, that's girlfriend's real camera, not my Iphone. It turns out to make a difference.
* Yes, yes. Prime beef is corn fattened, not grass. Grass is better. But USDA corn fed prime is a different food, and though not as healthy, has its own special flavor profile a lot of people like.
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