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Banco

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Everything posted by Banco

  1. Banco
    I agree with most of what MF says in his article, though I also agree with what others have said in this thread, that his criteria seem a bit shifty and he contradicts himself a few times. But his central points are valid: out-of-town, chain-like development has dominated the restaurant scene recently in a city that can only take so much of it before it seems homogenized; good market options are a recent and still underdeveloped aspect of food life here; finding decent cheese, meat and other staples in shops dedicated to them is difficult and only recently beginning to improve. I think it's important to recognize the standard he his setting and that he says DC so far has failed to achieve: a great restaurant city. DC isn't one, and it's not bitter and mean-spirited to observe this while recognizing the vast and genuine improvements the city has made toward that standard in only the past few decades. Perhaps his article hit a nerve because we justifiably have a lot to be proud of in how DC's food culture has improved and continues to improve. (There is also the broader, and broadly American, problem that the capital's cultural significance has always disappointed those who expect it to be commensurate with its political power.) His piece rains on this parade but rightfully points out that DC still has a way to go before it can call itself a great or world-class food city.
  2. Banco
    She showed me a picture. It was a white cracker of a fish. Thanks all for spoiling my lunch. It tasted good.
  3. Banco
    Delightful lunch at the bar here today, the first time for me since their reconfiguration. I had the Sushi Jo set, which is a "chef's favorite" selection of about 10 nigiri with a small tuna maki. The server told me that one of the nigiri was from a relatively rare white tuna they had got in from the Philippines recently. It and everything else were as close to flawless as I've tasted around here. The texture and flavor of the rice were perfect, the wasabi discreet, the fish absolutely fresh. The accompaniments--miso soup and a simple potato salad with green beans--were delicious and well balanced. As I found myself still nursing a bottle of sake after this meal, I sliced caution and my budget through the belly and ordered the Kobe roll. Thin slices of beef and avocado form the outside in a pattern that reminded me of old French book bindings, with crisp asparagus, capers, and rice inside, topped with a garlic chip. It was beautiful to look at and insanely delicious. Given the various ingredients it could have been a mess in lesser hands, but here it was a masterstroke. What a great lunch!
  4. Banco
    I don't know your gender, but thanks to the recent SCOTUS decision it doesn't matter. I want to marry you. (Oh, sorry, I'm married already. Damn. And I have two kids. Double damn.)
  5. Banco
    Bass all the way, baby.
  6. Banco
    Impact as a verb. This is barrel-fish-shooting, as the Germans might kompose it. I'm beginning to think a thread devoted to the vagaries of restaurant patois is even less interesting than one devoted to the vagaries of linguistic exchange in general. If so, Don, please put us all out of our misery.
  7. Banco
    Yeah, it gets pretty hostile here on DR.com. And when I find myself posting and responding in the same vein, I don't feel good about myself afterwards. What we really need is a grand DR auto-da-fé, accompanied by the appropriate chorus from Don Carlo, which I've sung but now forget.
  8. Banco
    I speak from experience and can tell you that they assume an even more benign aspect.
  9. Banco
    Ha. As you can see you didn't miss much. Maybe we should get back to restaurant talk. How do people feel about server as opposed to waiter/waitress? I still sometimes say waiter and always feel like an old fart for doing so, then I wonder why I should feel that way. If getting rid of waiter is meant to assuage feelings of servitude for those that hold this job, I don't see how the related server is any better.
  10. Banco
    I can see we were talking at cross purposes, and some of your points are well taken. I was indeed referring to the general prevalence of American cultural influence in postwar Europe because I think that is really the only practical (if imperfect) way of determining influence in one particular aspect of culture, namely language. In other words, although I agree an empirical, data-based analysis of both languages would be the better route to answering the question, I doubt such an analysis is practical or even possible. That's why most analysts of this question, whatever their discipline, take a more holistic approach and look at language within a broader cultural context. That's not anti-intellectual. Quite the opposite, it's an honest recognition of the limited tools at one's disposal to address a complex issue. (The article by Heidrun Kämper in this book gives a good overview of this topic in the German context.)
  11. Banco
    Right, and there's Le Pain Quotidien, though it's Belgian. But as you know, these are a kind of a hybrid between restaurant and cafe. It's one of those remarkable but obvious things that there is no full-blown "French" restaurant chain in America. Perhaps that is just the last rung on the ladder down to strip-mall culinary hell?
  12. Banco
    That's an interesting viewpoint (to use a French-ism). Linguists, sociologists, historians, political scientists and all their brothers and sisters have been writing about the Americanization of European cultures for decades, not only after WWII. As with any subject that so many have studied, not all the scholarship is good, but all who study it recognize its existence. There is a point where an argument must rely on shared general education and experience in a certain topic in order to be understood, What is a barrier to understanding and anti-intellectual is the naive need for "data" to demonstrate secular intellectual trends that people versed in this particular topic have debated and disagreed about, but have recognized, for a long, long time.
  13. Banco
    No, but postwar (i.e., post WWII ) history might get you off to a good start.
  14. Banco
    In men's tailoring, bespoke and custom actually have distinct meanings, and American usage in the garment trade follows the British, as it does the French in the realm of cuisine, the Italian and the French in the realm of art, the German in the realm of philosophy, etc. And all these categories overlap, with many other languages mixed in. American culture is a conglomerate of derivatives. "Bespoke cupcake" is of course ridiculous, as are cupcakes generally.
  15. Banco
    I had a mentor/roommate/landlord for years who is now a dear friend of the family, an Oxonian, now in his late seventies, a living "Briticism." Quite (quite!) without intending to, I learned many forms of speech from my friend in my formative years that I now, reading this enlightening thread, have learned are "Briticisms." "At the end of the day,"? "Spot on"? I had no idea. But "pissed" instead of "pissed off" I think is an abbreviation of the English original in the nominative, not a misuse of the English form for "drunk." The litmus test is perhaps the transitive form: We say "Her post pissed me off," not "Her post pissed me." I'm sure many Brits do the same, which would be an example of a much more prevalent phenomenon than Briticism: Americanism.
  16. Banco
    I did not read the Washingtonian article Tweaked linked to in its entirety, but I managed to get past the first few paragraphs before I said to myself, "How many modest, traditional, charming traditions from culinary civilizations (in this case France) must we see parodied in this way?" We deride, but take in our stride, chain crap like Olive Garden as a corruption of Italian cuisine because the immigrant history is so long. (Some people even use "Italian" to describe things that you would never find in Italy.) I think SM is attempting the same thing with French cuisine. We have all kinds of French-themed restaurants all over the country, but they are usually independently owned, or run by people who really know French food, sometimes even expats. I'm not saying they're all good. But there is not yet any truly big chain phenomenon of French cuisine as there is for the traditional culinary immigrant cultures, Italy and China. Bistro Jardin anyone? That's what worries me, aside from the fact that SM's celebrity aura is taking over a block next to where I work, and I would gladly spend money on something inventive, original, and good, regardless of its ethnicity.
  17. Banco
    I wonder what linguists think about this. American English, as the name implies, seems to me to be more of an English dialect than a language in its own right, so the entire thing is a Briticism. Or am I being toffee nosed?
  18. Banco
    OK, what sends me running for cover is the rhetorical device of a series of questions which the writer answers, followed by the "punchline" of what he was trying to say in the first place, along the lines of an old credit card commercial, e.g.: "Was he educated at a good university? Of course! Is he intelligent and amiable? You bet! Does he read and appreciate good writing? Totally! But does he constantly pepper his speech with inane and hackneyed bullshit? Absolutely!" You know who you are.
  19. Banco
    I'm quaking with envy. I love that city; glad you had such a great time.
  20. Banco
    No problem. In fact, I wasn't really sure where this thread was going at all. I just wanted to commiserate with those who couldn't find the Dragon after its recent write up, and offered an alternative. Having grown up on the West Coast in the 1970s, I should share your bias against blush wines in spades, but I don't. For sitting outdoors in this humid climate, eating spicy, full flavored stuff like BBQ, there is no match for a good rosé. I keep coming back to Provence for this, or in a pinch (as here) Pays d'Oc.
  21. Banco
    You're on! And you can have any size plate you want!
  22. Banco
    I agree, but this is not the point of holdtheline's anti-rant rant, so far as I can make it out.
  23. Banco
    Yes, his options are many. Hyperbole, etc. We've covered that. Perhaps I could understand your argument better if you used other words than "silly." The original "rant" is no longer in this thread, but if I remember correctly, the author made cogent arguments about the type of flavors chefs felt they could introduce, the pricing they could level, and the amount and variety of dishes a diner would be induced to order based on the small plates scheme. These are reasonable observations that make up a reasonable thesis, which, if you disagree with it, deserves a reasonable counterargument. You have not provided that.
  24. Banco
    You're right, there are many decent meals to be had in DC. But since you use the word: Hyperbole is a rhetorical device and a form of exaggeration. The author was not being literal.
  25. Banco
    Obviously, the entire European juniper fields must be dug up and replaced with resistant American root stock. If they're lucky enough to have been raised properly, our children in their old age will wistfully recall pre-phytophthora gin while shaking their heads at their modern martinis.
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