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Poivrot Farci

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  1. Poivrot Farci
    Charging $50 for a gallon of diesel and potato chips during a hurricane in the midst of a siege is gouging. Charging a premium for hand made leather shoes, top shelf booze or truffled noodles at a fancy restaurant is not. That ham sandwich is a blatant splurge, not an essential consumer good. Consumers are free to purchase other options for ½ the price, at Taylor Gourmet, where a commodity vegetarian sandwich somehow costs the same as a one with commodity meats. Spendthrifts can also buy cardboard flip-flops and burlap sheets. Mirabelle makes the bread, butter and ham from infinitely better ingredients, which commands a fair amount of knack, and none of that comes cheap. Ultimately, your gripe is with commercial landlords who are the scourge of humanity and deserve to collectively get syphilis.
  2. Poivrot Farci
    It is reasonable to consider whether the markups support healthy employee wages (cheers) and/or cushion revolting commercial landlord greed (jeers). Roger Marmet is known to be an exceptionally fair and even generous employer. And better ingredients cost more money than marginal ones.
  3. Poivrot Farci
    While still relatively early in the year, this is the most substantial (and substantive) list of 29 year-old luminary foodie heavyweights to date and 25 of them independently define success as "achieving your potential", verbatim.
  4. Poivrot Farci
    Assuming you have a hood over the island, consider hanging short cabinetry/shelves on both sides (with light & outlets far away from potential splatter) as any space way up there is otherwise wasted and makes good storage for tableware/pantry/small appliance miscellany. A recessed counter-top compost bin next to the double sink is the next best thing
  5. Poivrot Farci
    I pity the tortured individual rolling out the dough with a rolling pin unless one of the hands is operating the crank of a commercial pasta rolling mechanism, the same hand that pulls down the lever on the French fry thingy at other restaurants. They have “wild calamari”. I have never heard of any other kind. Must be some untamed squid or sounds better in Italian.
  6. Poivrot Farci
    Congratulations to Mr. Hambone, who has worked very hard for a long time with modest fanfare and gets the rare opportunity to call the cherished hall -or in this case basement- of maniacal tutelage, his home. Alain Passard did the same and few have complained.
  7. Poivrot Farci
    A conspirator's obsessive opus, implications of underground construction and the now obvious (to me) sexual innuendo of "pizza". Enjoy, perverts.
  8. Poivrot Farci
    As per America’s debatable and arbitrary greatness, the onus for food safety rests almost entirely on the consumer via cautionary stickers indicating “cook thoroughly”, whatever that means, and not so charming words of caution at the bottom of the menu. In more modern & advanced European countries such as Denmark, salmonella is checked for in chick hatcheries and when detected the chicks are destroyed before they enter the food chain. Their interwebs & trains are faster and the food more expensive than ours, but it is also much better.
  9. Poivrot Farci
    I get the life-story part but it is odd that one would want to crack & replicate the flavor/texture matrix of supermarket aisle candy during the one week of the year that most would-be patrons probably have a leftover bowl of the real stuff at home. This low-hanging launch kind of has a memorable Kenny Powers’ stunt feel to it (no, not that one); the madcap swashbuckler who attempted to jettison himself more than a mile across the St. Lawrence river in a rocket powered Lincoln Continental (full length documentary version) cruising forth at a staggering 280mph. Years in the making, lots of hype and possibly not enough studied grasp of physics and aerodynamics fundamentals of rubber meeting and then leaving road. Kwame’s culinary bonafides and stardom, which some interchange with “talent”, was mostly accrued after participating in an edited/choreographed cable gameshow and supplemented by tales of pulled bootstraps of which most have our own version . He benefited tremendously from it, quite apparently, and if I had met my sugardaddy at a cocksure age 26, not knowing what I know now, that confidence isn’t always an adequate substitute for skill, I very likely would have aimed for the other side of the Potomac too, with Icelandic pelted car seats and a gold leaf steering wheel. But the predisposed genius of white-knuckle driving, tickling the ivory or counting matchsticks does not carry over to sauté pans & circulators and the weight of inexperience while short-cutting the inside track is about as hefty as any model Lincoln built before the oil embargo. And plating food on what look like expensive ashtrays made by bored adults does not add anything to a dish other than the cost of extra shelving because they don’t stack well. I think I’d rather root for success than chuckle at failure but it’s hard when there appears to be a deficiency of humility, practice and worthwhile purchases.
  10. Poivrot Farci
    This is the cutting edge variety of extravagant double-dog going-around-you-ass-to-get-to-your-elbow wizardry that separates the wheat from the chaff and disposable duckets from sheltered patrons. Conventionally chilled glasses using electricity are the keystone of banality and decidedly not the same kind of “cool”. This elite squad has been goofed on from every angle and medium but they have deep, gilded coffers and reliable roster of cheerleaders. It is an astutely choreographed allegory to the decadence, denial and hopeless hype that has macerated the last 18 months of American pop-culture and history. They’ll do just fine, balance their budget*, replace Obamacare and can always blame biased detractors for exaggerating expectations if they flop. Considering the premium price tags, there is a potentially fatal flaw in such a business model and theory. Good luck to sirs, nonetheless.
  11. Poivrot Farci
    I’m conflicted by the deserved recognition of premium service & taste vs the craving for those in the business to work towards a meal deemed worthy of top honors and a detour as judged by a bucket list guide rather than making food and getting it to a preferred audience to please them and themselves, first and foremost. I’m also puzzled to see a Sally Field’s flavored horse race for culinary validation in a city with a nearly 20% poverty rate and barely a dozen worthwhile bakers, butchers, fish mongers or even a legitimate produce store with a permanent roof for those passionate about food and cooking at home in a capital of 600,000+. Sure, populist food and altruism doesn’t win splashy distinctions or notches on globetrotting diners’ Instabook page, but the recent spate of Rabelaisian dining lyceums should be offset by a few gestures from the best in show to make better (quality and variety) food available to those who don’t have the time and coffers to eat out but value the good stuff. Restaurant figureheads needn’t commit to the needs of the starved like noble attorneys who donate to the Innocence Project, but it would be pleasant to see more chef/restaurateurs embrace and promote the US’s struggling food culture instead of using it as a springboard for personal gain –even if its honey-glazed community service retribution for wage theft and flimsy food labeling or getting publicity from a civil rights dinner playbill. Those in DC and the rest of the country that care enough about their food don’t need more restaurants that are too difficult to get into either by virtue of price or popularity which comes with these tire prizes. They need access to the same food that restaurants have (like in the land of Michelin) to be able to gauge what a restaurant can do with it rather than simply the novelty and rare chance to taste it. And for a further audit, inspectors should rummage behind the curtain a bit, find out if the restaurants pay their staff livable wages, offer benefits, recycles and have curbed fraudulent menu descriptors (is that “grass-fed” NY strip on the menu of one of the Bib recs really “100% grass fed” or “100% bullshit”). Those are qualities that matter more to diners than a decade ago. Then there’s the terrible shame not to see the more than averagely qualified, capable and proficient Frank Ruta on the oddschecker. Maybe he’ll get a pat-on-the-back lifetime achievement footnote.
  12. Poivrot Farci
    I’ve only been to a few developing countries but have friends/family that travel extensively throughout the 3rd world's capillaries for humanitarian & environmental reasons and while the foods they experience are said to be delicious and beyond comparison elsewhere, the quality of the ingredients is often on the cusp of awful as a result of pollution, polluted water, and a “sacrifice today for tomorrow” ethos on farming/fishing/hunting. They don’t raise heirloom goats, premium poultry or grow micro lettuce pubes in those parts of the world and refrigeration at a market is not an option or even a thing. So the meats (more calories than vegetables) are cooked a long time to destroy anything that might humiliate your insides and it tastes good. A nutritional intern at the CDC might faint. Koshari is delicious, but water and uncooked vegetables in most of Egypt might will give even Anthony Bourdain* a 98% chance of hot rain. In Japan however they pamper produce and massage their cattle with Sumo wrestler reverence. And Japanese food is not notoriously cheap. Using better domestic ingredients would warrant and price increase, but there is nothing spectacular with the commodity vegetables coming from the parched west or the pork coming from massive slaughterhouses on the East coast that kill 10,000 pigs a day and never see the day of light. Know a guy who visited one. It was not a pleasant experience and he said they don’t let you visit the plant where they kill 15,000 a day. It is more than probable that the pork in most ramen/phó/whatever comes from any one of them and it does not constitute quality through any prism of debate. *whom I admire, envy and had a drink with a long time ago after he bought the kitchen a drink. He’s a top notch globetrotter and hosts a captivating show, minus the 42 crapulous minutes wasted with Sean Brock.
  13. Poivrot Farci
    While Mr. Benton is as charming as a fistful of tomatoes on a summer's day is long, he cures/smokes products but does not raise them; likely getting them from large(r) scale farms that can provide him with a considerable supply and I can not attest to the breed or farming situations, but I'll bet you a ramen they ain't coming from Green Acres. As for the produce at H Mart vs Momofuku, I'll bet a pork bun they both get it from the same commodity California farms and if Mr. Change has people convinced otherwise, he's not so much a savvy businessman as customers are easily fooled by high and unfounded expectations. I hope that someone of Mr. Chang's notoriety and passion is making more conscionable decisions about where he gets his ingredients, and he should state so, as a selling point for those who care.
  14. Poivrot Farci
    Cordially, what makes you or anyone confident that Momofuku (DC at least) is not using commodity ingredients (vegetables, pork/beef/chicken)? They make no claims otherwise on their menu.
  15. Poivrot Farci
    Chef Kwame et al have invested a tremendous amount of money (let alone on a Hestan stove, I've heard), received plenty of press and very few are so irresponsible as to squander such a surfeit of cash & attention, particularly in an election year. So long as they provide a window of when the wine outfitter will call to discuss my Piquepoul inseam (so it can coincide with the cable outfitter) and that he can match something to make my jaundice look fabulous they’ll do just fine. More so at $350+ a pop. No dress code offsets the $75 corkage so I’ll pay the piper to wear flip flops and bring a white zinfandel in my cargo shorts pocket. One Direction was, like, $920 for 2 in 2013, remember? Upon further reflection however, I choose not to subsidize insecure egos who are desperately trying to transform a noble service of pleasure & convenience into Cirque du Sommelier where tortured style and an obnoxious parade of dainty finger food on ugly plates has to compensate for reliable subst(en)ance without airs (or foams).
  16. Poivrot Farci
    I, for one, look forward to having to express interest, then, explain, prior to dinner, over a telephone conversation, in no uncertain terms, my unabashed financial allotment for wine for that particular evening, provided I have good reception at the time and/or am not driving or on the toilet. This is a formidable leap from reading the wine menu thingy so long as their juice haberdasher doesn’t suit me up with $55 worth of ‘91 Pomerol in a burlap sack.
  17. Poivrot Farci
    Grapefruit, like most, if not all citrus, are best from fall through spring and peak in winter. Organic does not replace seasonality. And it was not a good winter for citrus in Florida.
  18. Poivrot Farci
    What is charming about the movie/script is that words/phrases are re-hashed throughout the story, intentionally or otherwise (much like in Raising Arizona): “this aggression will not stand”, “chinaman”, “parlance of our times” and so on. It is worth noting that the background colors of all the scenes in which the Dude is in are red, blue, yellow and green: his kitschy living-room lamp shades, bathroom wallpaper (he is listening to the sounds of whales later in the tub which is consistent with his whale themed checkbook), the radio and cocktail when Bunny Lebowski sells her services poolside, the neon stars in and outside the bowling alley, lights behind the Dude when he gets the cab in Malibu and so on. I went to the 2nd Annual Lebowski Fest in Louisville Kentucky a long time ago, which was held at a bowling alley next to a hotel which had a nihilist pool party and “welcome little Lebowski achievers” on the marquis. There was a ringer toss* in the parking lot which was throwing a bowling bag of whites over the same make and model of the dude’s car (bowling trophy hood ornament) from the passenger side into a bullseye, for charity. Jeffrey Dowd (the pope of dope and OG Beta Dude) was in presence and a Big Lebowski proxy in an electric wheelchair won the costume competition, edging out the guy in a Creedence cassette tape cover. *rotator cuff makes the ringer toss in the movie impossible
  19. Poivrot Farci
    I'm pretty sure that "moules-frites" is a northern thing more closely associated with Belgium and to a lesser extent the region of northern France along the Atlantic ocean/North Sea. In fact, I am certain, but it would seem that neither the management nor focus groups are, or care and that's a shame.
  20. Poivrot Farci
    Organic free-range 1/2 chicken for $19/$21 is ridiculously and suspiciously cheap. Unless the chicken is certified organic it can not be labeled or sold as organic. "Local grassfed beef" without specifics of where in VA or who means absolutely nothing. Commodity beef (what they are likely using for the filet) is more expensive than it used to be -drought, supply, demand.
  21. Poivrot Farci
    FF makes hay over their claim that they get their food from family farms. Cargill is also family owned, and did $120 billion in sales last year. So either FF deserves a modicum of kudos beyond the mashed potatoes (what family farm are they getting potatoes from in April/May?), maybe even ½ a kudo for making a conscientious effort to rely on domestic, possibly regional smaller farms for their products or they should be excoriated for using commodity, like most do, in a manner that doesn’t smack of a smarmy grade-school English class assignment. If TS and the top brass at the WashPo insist on running trendy, cherry-picked killshots on low hanging fruit, then either save it for Labor Day weekend to get the grill started or take some lessons from a premium dress-down marksman who has a style and perspicacity. It’s a bit early for corn and, well, cucumbers are harbingers of spring. What small family farms are providing the beef, pork, chicken and vegetables and are the shrimp domestic? Perhaps the lines reflect consumer consciousness about where their food comes from and if they are being duped, that is where the scoop is. If TS is wearing a consumer advocate cap, then such smug “reviews” should at least inform and educate the consumer rather than insulting their considerable patronage only to satisfy a withering ego with click-bait, especially with the Michelin man rolling who will raise the bar and perhaps question the city standard bearer’s credibility.
  22. Poivrot Farci
    The entire concept, mantra, ethos, whatever of FF is completely and reliably overlooked by the wilted critic who overlooks the bullshit most restaurants serve but is not capable of holding FF's roller-skates to the fire by ever thinking to question where their "farmer" driven food comes from, ostensibly because he does not know, or after 16 years of being a sycophant weather-vane, care. It helps, exponentially, to read the shittyly written review with the preternaturally douchey Erlich Bachman voiceover.
  23. Poivrot Farci
    Add bouillabaisse and aïoli to the undercard fight. Palena if you take the frighteningly outdated and hopelessly backwards metro system, or The Grill Room. 5+ years of making risotto for Frank (risi e bisi included, with a coddled egg, Reggiano and summer truffle; saffron & eggplant; artichoke and mint; chanterelle and escargot, many others...) I can’t recall every using stock, even if bone marrow was added. Only water or vegetable/mushroom broths. There is no need for the protein-based stock as it muddies the other important flavors and the rice’s starch provides the body. Stirring is folksy and all but if you peek under the lid, the rice stirs itself. If you don't cook risotto with a lid, then that's too bad.
  24. Poivrot Farci
    What makes it authentic other than the words or ingredients on the menu? I suppose calling an item Taiwanese, Thai, Lao, Cambodian or even French is enough to convince some people. Just like slapping a bouillabaisse sign on a shellfish hodge-podge. Of course both are careful not to make any pledges of allegiance of representing the real McCoy. "Carroll's menu is informed by the Mediterranean coast", whatever that means, and Maketto's "60 seat restaurant is our interpretation of Cambodian and Taiwanese cooking." Why hunting down authentic ethnic food is a loaded proposition (NPR)
  25. Poivrot Farci
    I have not had their idea of a bouillabaisse, and while some varieties of those ingredients can be found in the Mediterranean with some effort (spiny lobster instead of American lobster) and surely it tastes good, none of them are traditional/authentic staples of bouillabaisse and tossing in a heavy pinch of saffron & fennel to a mish-mash of steamed/boiled/grilled shellfish does not legitimize christening a dish to accommodate the Frenchified Mediterranean-ish greatest-hits-concept-narrative. Rillettes, snails, quiche, duck confit and moules frites are not representative of genuine Club Med either, but Mediterranean sounds so damn familiar and comfy that no one cares. Requin sounds like opportunists as well.
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