hungry prof

I know restaurant margins are tight, but I suspect that most 3* New York chefs can at least pay the rent if they continue to cook. I suppose there's nothing actually "wrong" either legally or morally with Rocco's career trajectory, but there is something unfortunate about it (note: I avoided the overwrought "tragic."). The guy was at the top of his profession--the rarefied air of 3* from the NYT--and he left it all behind to be a glorified salesman. I'm stretching for an analogy here, but it's like a great filmmaker deciding he's going to make tv commercials for the rest of his or her life. With Rocco's looks, charisma, and talent, I suspect he could have easily done what Tom Colicchio has done. Heck, in some alternative universe, it's probably Rocco who's hosting Top Chef.

Well, I'm not sure he "sold out" more than Rocco did. I guess it depends on how you define it. But the fact that Rocco is a better cook is precisely the point. Perhaps Bourdain recognized that there was a limit on how good he was going to be as a chef, so he moved on to other things for which he's better suited, like writing (at which I'd argue he's very talented). The issue that so many people, including Bourdain, have with Rocco is the squandered talent. He got 3* from the NYT, and a few years later he's hocking frozen pasta dinners. While Bourdain may be a better writer than he is a chef, is Rocco really a better QVC salesman than he is chef?

Rocco's next reply here. Alas, I think Rocco's attempt to equate Bourdain's often (but not always) interesting and intelligent work on No Reservations with his own shilling of frozen pasta dinners falls more than a bit flat.

The in-laws were in town this weekend, which means finding a place with: 1) Good food 2) A relatively quiet setting for my going-deaf-but-won't-admit-it father-in-law 3) A reasonable corkage police for same said wine collecting/wine snob father-in-law Corduroy came through in a terrific way. On the menu: For appetizers, my mother-in-law and I both had the soft shell crabs, fried crispy, yet not greasy, with substantial crabs underneath that you could actually taste. I wonder how many people go through life claiming they love soft shell crabs, but who never experience them prepared this marvelously. My FIL had the lobster carpaccio appetizer (which the waiter assured us was cooked), and I assume it was good since it was gone before I had time to ask if I could try it. Sister-in-law had the beet salad, and my wife had the chilled pea soup (aka, essence of spring). Not a drop was left on any plate. And all went well with the '93 Meursault that my FIL had brought along. For the entrees, three of us--myself, FIL, MIL--had the buffalo steak. My father-in-law is the type who matches food to his wines rather than vice versa. We had two '66 Haut Brions to drink with dinner., and my FIL immediately chose the buffalo as the perfect accompaniment. A terrific piece of meat, cooked to a perfect medium rare. My wife had the scallops, which are everything that has been advertised--plump, buttery, what scallops should be. Finally, my sister-in-law demolished her seared tuna. For dessert, my wife and I split the chocolate torte with caramelized bananas, which I remember as being good though I had consumed a lot of Bordeaux at that point. Service was excellent, including the wine service on the bottles that we brought. (Our bus-woman almost did set the place on fire, however. She put down the bread basket, and the napkin holding the bread accidentally got caught by the candle on the table. We all thought it was kind of amusing, but I suppose a fire alarm going off in a restaurant could really ruin the night.) One piece of constructive criticism: on spectrum of detailed menu descriptions to spare menu descriptions, Corduroy definitely tends toward the spare. The menu is far less interesting on paper than it is when the waiter described some of the dishes in detail. In fact, I don't think the descriptions on the actual menu do the dishes justice. Thank you, Corduroy. We'll be back.

Or they simply haven't filmed the finale yet. On most of these shows, there seems to be a decent gap between when they film most of the episodes and when they film the finale (think about the last season of Top Chef in which Elia had time to start growing her hair back before the finale). If there's no winner yet, then the name of the winner can't be leaked and everybody has to keep their jobs in the interim.

The eG thread on Top Chef suggests that this season's contestants might actually be the strongest yet. An executive sous chef at Jean Georges. . .a sous chef at Guy Savoy in Vegas. . .a former sous chef at Trio outside of Chicago. Some good resumes.

Well, this seems more than a bit unfair. I'm sure Dean would be distraught to hear that your wife may have contracted food poisoning at his restaurant. At the same time, generalizing from one bad experience to absolute advice like this makes no sense. Let me put it this way: my wife and I along with six of our friends had a wonderful meal at Dino a few months ago. Service was great, the food was great, and none of us got sick. Based on that, does it make anymore sense for me to advise: "As always, eat the food at Dino. Eat the food at Dino. Repeat: Eat the food at Dino."? ETA: A helpful member has just given me some context for this from the Old Ebbitt thread. I think my post still stands. In fact, it now takes on an ironic dimension, I suppose.

Click. ETA: Given a second look, that is their website, but aside from the front page, it's D-E-A-D. None of the links take you anywhere.

Joe, with all due respect (and I mean that--I've learned an enormous amount from you), how much credibility do your comments on any of Donna's establishments have at this point? Anybody who has followed these boards knows that you know him very well personally, that you were one of his invited audience guests when he was on Iron Chef (!), and that you have held numerous special meals at his restaurants. Do you honestly believe that you get the same food and service as the rest of us when you go into Bebo? And if it requires establishing a personal relationship with the chef to get top-notch food and service, then that strikes me as a pretty damning review of a restaurant.

My son's firth birthday party is in a few weeks, and I'm in search of a good cake (obviously, less for him than for the adults who will be attending). I thought there was a thread on here about birthday cakes, but a search didn't find anything. Any suggestions for a good ol' fashioned birthday cake? We're in DC, but we're willing to travel to the 'burbs. Thanks.

I was in last night, and there was an employee manning the operational pizza oven. Behind him, I could see one lone pizza in the oven that looked like it had way too many toppings on it (like the type of pizza you imagine a five-year old constructing at some sort of do-it-yourself pizza birthday party). There were no pizzas available for purchase, so perhaps he was in training. As for Jamba Juice, my understanding from a previous discussion here, I believe, is that WFM and Jamba Juice have severed their relationship nationally, so Jamba Juice will not be returning. At one point, I looked at the plans for the Glover Park WFM, and I believe that front space is going to be allocated for some of the non-edible merchandise that WFM has gotten into--cosmetics, greeting cards, and even clothing (I have a friend who works in corporate at American Apparel, and apparently WFM and American Apparel have been working on a marketing relationship for WFM to sell American Apparel's "environmentally-friendly, worker-friendly" t-shirts. I heard that awhile ago, so I'm not sure whatever became of it).

Well, for what it's worth, my wife and I ate at the Inn about a month ago and had the identical tasting menu and pairings as lackadaisi, and we thought the meal was superb. We pulled up in our Honda CR-V, paid (part of the bill) with a gift certificate from our real estate agent, and were younger than most people in the room. I was going to write a lengthy review when we ate there, but the eight-month old baby constantly pulling at my leg has made that difficult. In order to avoid repeating lackadaisi's run down of the entire tasting menu, I won't go through course-by-course, but I will note a couple of differences of opinion. First, my wife and I both really enjoyed the first round of amuses. Lackadaisi can't remember the fourth spoon amuse, but I *think* I can a month later: a prosciutto with local pears. Second, my wife and I both thought the lobster course was excellent, and I thought the wine pairing was wonderful. In fact, it was a pairing that really made me appreciate the skill involved in pairing wine with food. One point of complete agreement: the veal cheek was the highlight of the evening. They served a steak knife with it, but I can't imagine anybody actually using it. "Like butter" has become cliche, but this really was. We did have some service issues. I had the wine pairings, but my wife wanted one glass of champagne (unlike the lucky lackadaisi, we were not staying at the Inn, and my wife volunteered to drive us back to the hotel we were staying at). Getting that glass of champagne required a few requests. Relatively minor, but you should only have to ask once for an $18 glass of champagne. We also encountered the problem that lackadaisi did with wine arriving late for certain courses. In one case, I was almost finished with the course by the time the wine was poured. We also felt like there was a bit of a Disneyesque quality to the Inn, starting with the personalized menus that you can keep as a souvenir. Like at Disney, everybody from the maitre d' to the waiters to the busboys seems to be a cast member rather than simply an employee doing a job. When I praised the mini-baguettes that were among the bread offerings, the busboy was sure to inform me that they were available for purchase in the gift shop. When I jokingly asked if they made their own sugar for the coffee, I was informed that, "No, it's [blah-blah-blah] imported from France, and you'll find it in our gift shop." On the other hand, with the exception of the off timing on a couple of courses, I will say that I enjoyed the wine service. The wine selections were explained to us in detail and questions were answered fully and without any hurry. I actually felt like I learned something from the wine service. If they were doing that for each table, perhaps that's why they were behind on serving the wine a couple of times. In sum, my wife and I haven't been lucky enough to eat at that many four-star reviewed places (and that eight-month old pulling on my leg who requires monthly contributions to his 529 plan will preclude many visits in the near future), but we thought this meal was certainly up there with the best meals we've had. Last year, my in-laws took us to the four-star Le Bernardin in NYC, and we thought the Inn was close to as good (and, in some ways, more interesting since Le Bernardin is all fish). Lackadaisi asks the right question, though: is it worth this much money? Is any meal worth this much money? My answer: I'd love to go again, but probably not on my own dime.

Danny notes the intense criticism that NYC restaurant critics receive vs. the criticism (or lack thereof) that TS receives. As somebody who follows the Bruni-bashing up in NYC, I'd note one fairly significant difference: Bruni regularly gets slammed simply for the restaurants he chooses to review, let alone the actual review. With the relatively infrequent occasion on which TS reviews something in Baltimore or in Front Royal (when, by the way, he does get an earful in his weekly chats), TS is rarely criticized for the specific restaurants he chooses to review. The pool of plausibly reviewable restaurants is simply smaller in DC. I can't remember there ever being a post on here along the lines of, "Can you believe he wasted a WaPo review on. . .?" Tom's been growing on me lately. If you go back in this thread, I was critical of his writing. Still not a huge fan, but I'm coming around.

There's much to be said for a restaurant that knows what it is and knows what it wants to be. That's how my wife and I and our six friends felt at Dino last night. Dino serves very good, wholesome Italian food in a comfortable environment. Dino is not Maestro, and it doesn't aspire to be Maestro. But it does what it does well. We started the evening with an assortment of very good salumi and cheeses. The cheeses disappeared very quickly. The salumi last only a bit longer (and only because two people weren't eating the salumi). Hard for me to identify any, in particular, as favorites. I enjoyed them all. In addition to the salumi and cheese, we had a raw tuna appetizer as well as a plate of baby octopus. The tuna was good, but the octopus, served in a lemony broth with chickpeas, was a favorite of the evening. For my main course, I had the roasted duck. I'm a sucker for duck and was quite satisfied with Dino's offering. My wife had the whole roasted branzino, and she thought it was similarly good (though she was surprised to find a chickpea among her fish. Despite the description given, it almost seemed to have the same sauce as the octopus appetizer). Others around the table had the stuffed squash, the lasagna, and the wild boar pasta. All plates seemed to be empty at the end of the course. (The wild boar pasta was not a raving success as our friend thought it was too dry, but still good. I caught him splashing a bit of olive oil into his pasta.) For dessert, I had the aged balsamic vinegar over vanilla gelato. I'll admit I've always heard about this combination, but never actually tried it. I'd definitely try it again. The rustic fruit tart met with similar success. Unfortunately, the kitchen had run out of the warm chocolate torta just as we were ordering dessert, so a few around the table were mildly disappointed. Despite a few small hiccups (e.g., a forgotten espresso), service was generally quite good and friendly. Dean was seen visiting every table without bothering any tables. We brought a couple of '97 barollos with us. Dean predicted beforehand that they might be a bit young for drinking, and he was spot on (though they still were very, very good). All in all, a very nice evening. We were four couples all with young children simply looking for a nice, relaxing, affordable, all-too-infrequent night out. Dino delivered. (One small frustration: no valet parking. Finding parking at 8:30 on a Saturday night in Cleveland Park is, to say the least, challenging. We wound up using the valet at Indique. Perhaps this goes with the neighborhood concept: neighborhood restaurants don't have valet parking.)

I'd take issue with this as well. My wife and I flew Alitalia from Dulles to Milan on our honeymoon two years ago. Awful food. I mean old-school-greasy-bland-tasteless-chicken-with-vegetables-steamed-to-death-wrapped-in-foil bad airline food. Sort of ironic for the national airline of a country with such a rich culinary tradition to have such atrocious food.

My wife and I used 3Citron for our wedding almost exactly two years ago. We were very happy with them. We shopped around at a bunch of different caterers, looking primarily for those who could offer us something beyond the usual wedding fare. Ultimately, my take is that the food among the top caterers is roughly similar (no matter how you cut it, it's catered food for lots of people), so for us, it came down to which catering manager we felt most comfortable with and who best understood what we wanted. For example, we had one tasting with a very good caterer, but the catering manager reminded us of our mothers. And the last thing we needed was a third mother as we planned our wedding. Another caterer offered very good food, but took forever to respond to phone calls and e-mails, which annoyed me. (I'd rather not name names publicly, but PM me if you want more details.)

One addition to my earlier post: If you're in the mood for generally mediocre (but certainly not terrible) bar food, the Tombs is within walking distance, between 1789 and Wisie's on 36th St.

A few suggestions: -In the Leavey Center (the student union--#22 on the map), there's a student run convenience store called Vital Vittles. In addition to carrying assorted junk food deemed essential for studying for finals, they bring in sandwiches from various places around lunchtime everyday. They usually get stuff from Booeymongers, Marvelous Market, some Thai place, and a Middle Eastern place (they used to get it from Cafe Ole, but I think they've switched to some other place). Only problem is that the stuff tends to go quickly, and the pickings are usually pretty slim if you go at dinnertime. Not great, but generally a better option than the alternatives in Leavey--Subway, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and a hospital cafeteria. (Warning: I think Vittles may close for a week or two after graduation in two weeks.) -There are a couple of places in the Prospect St. strip right before Wisconsin that aren't bad--Peacock Cafe and Bangkok Bistro. Cafe Milano is also there if you feel like being seen and overpaying. -I'd second the Jetties recommendation. Other sandwich options are the above mentioned Wisemiller's (36th between Prospect and N) as well as Booeymonger's (Prospect and Potomac). The Hungry (Georgetown) Prof

I used one example as an example, not as a "smoking gun." Sorry, I don't have an indexed account of his writing. And, if I did, you'd tell me I "need a hobby." All I'm saying (seconding qwertyy above) is that Tom's writing sometimes leaves something to be desired. I'm not saying he's a terrible writer. He's a very good writer, but he writes some things (like the Powerball simile) that I can't believe get by an editor. He has a high profile job at a high profile newspaper. I don't think it's unfair to criticize his writing.

Fine. But he's not paid just to eat. He's paid to write about what he eats. Eating is necessary, but not sufficient to do his job. And I guarantee you he wasn't hired however long ago because of his eating skills.Edited for clarity.

Call it "base kvetching," if you will. It's a newspaper column for one of the largest newspapers in the country. I don't think good writing is an unreasonable expectation (talking about his columns, not his chats). After all, the guy is paid to write, not to eat. If you think my comment was "base kvetching," take a look at what they do to Bruni over on eG.

I'm with qwertyy on this one (though I also recognize this is stepping away from his online chats). How about this from his review of Faryab last weekend:"Good thing I made a reservation, I think to myself when I show up at Faryab early on a Friday night to find a crowded foyer and tables that are being snatched up like lottery tickets before a big Powerball drawing." Blech. He obviously thought about that simile before he used it, yet does it actually help the reader understand the situation any better?

Great questions with no simple answers in my view. I think it comes down to trusting people to use judgment and consideration, which are inherently subjective.I also think it depends on context. There's a difference between lingering at a perpetually crowded and cramped pizza joint and lingering at a 4-star restaurant at which they probably don't have too many walk-ins waiting for the next available table. We all run into trouble, I think, when we try to get absolute about things like this.

Well, quite a talent for charicature. Nowhere in my post did I say "eat as fast as possible." I have no problem with people enjoying their meals at 2 Amy's for as long as it reasonably takes. Maybe I'm too self conscious, but I actually don't enjoy myself when I feel like I'm making others uncomfortable. Perhaps others do.

Aside from the implications for the restaurant, I would add how rude lingering can be for fellow patrons. To wit [begin rant]: Like many on this board, my wife and I frequent 2 Amy's, which seems to be packed with people at all hours (ok, I've never been there at 3:00 on a Wednesday). I am constantly amazed at the temerity of people who linger at their tables while the teeming masses huddle in the corners or at the bar awaiting a table. Invariably, the longest lingerers are the largest parties--the two families of four eating together who haven't seen each other in ages. Have your (wonderful) pizza, enjoy your ice cream, and then please give up your table to somebody else. Frankly, I don't see the appeal of lingering at a place like 2 Amy's. The food's great, but it's a loud and crowded dining room. In this case at least, it's not about the profit margin of the restaurant. I think it's about being considerate of your fellow diners. [End rant]