lion

Ended up getting the 750, definitely feels hardcore. Michael Voltaggio gets pretty intense with his love of the machine in the accompanying dvd. Looking forward to making some soups with it.

It was a very informative documentary on the qualifications required for the mastery status. As I get older I wonder more about the motivations of the people involved with these kind of insular worlds that in some respects are based upon subjective analysis. I was entertained by the film, and thankfully it wasn't as brutal in the outcomes as the cake one, "The Kings of Pastry".

I called E Street Cinema and they said Spinning Plates would be playing at least a week. It was going to be hard for us to make it on Saturday. If it does well E Street said they will keep it longer.

http://www.spinningplatesmovie.com Opens November 8th, E Street Cinema From the website: Spinning Plates is a documentary about three extraordinary restaurants and the incredible people who bring them to life. A world-renowned chef competes for the ultimate restaurant prize in Chicago, while privately battling a life-threatening condition. A 150-year-old restaurant in Iowa is still standing only because of an unbreakable bond with the community. And a fledgling Mexican restaurant in Tucson struggles as its owners risk everything to survive and provide for their young daughter. Their unforgettable stories of family, legacy, passion and survival come together to reveal how meaningful food can be, and the power it has to connect us to one another.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a particular version? Or uses one is better for than another? Thanks!

More value for the experience can be differentiated and offered at a higher price such as offering a chef's table seating. However, I disagree and argue the same can not be said for time and if it works applies only to the low end of the retail market. When terms like dynamic pricing and yield management are used as principles for justifications of running a restaurant it probably isn't doing too well in the first place. Fractionalizing your restaurant's floor experience based on time or the other variables listed devalues the overall collective experience. And, the energy of a room does effect the quality of experience of the individual diners in my opinion. Next to the taste of the food, most people will remember how did the restaurant make me feel? Already a restaurant acts as a magician to weave an overall experience as diners eat different orders of food and drinks. In terms of the economic "golden rule", increasing/decreasing pricing because of demand happens. I think there are intangibles in a successful restaurant that is not a chain restaurant and framing it in an economic analysis only works to explain how to operate the business side. More often than not, trying to apply economic principles to generate the intangibles is where individual restaurants fail.

I think Sundae in the Park touched on the topic of my response briefly, but I'll elaborate a little more. Your point in regards to convenience is very important. However as a consumer and hopefully, frequent patron of a restaurant, it's my convenience that supersedes the restaurants. When a consumer makes a reservation, it's an agreement ideally that when the diner arrives, the restaurant will have a space for them at that agreed upon time. Having a discount for offsetting the rush of the restaurant is for the financial benefit or convenience of the restaurant. I have nothing against that if a restaurant chooses to enact that, however for me it recommends me of a high school cafeteria scheduling portions of the school body to handle the necessary daily chore. Why would a restauranteur want their customers to be looking at each other wondering if the other table gets a 20% discount because they would be there 30 minutes earlier? I think it would cheapen the experience of their product in the long run and turn their restaurant into a car dealership floor vibe with who got the better deal. However, my thoughts are focused on better quality restaurants versus more cafeteria level of style places as the article states.

Ironically, we ate at Four sisters this past week and had Bah Mi at their original location in the Eden Center on Saturday. Both lunches were very tasty. Four sisters is always good. However, still miss them in the old location with the feeling of the cramped room with the multitude of small plates on the table. Still haven't gone to Sea Pearl.

Great, really looking forward to it!

I'm doubtful restaurants can ask for more money for peak times versus non peak hours. For example, having a fixed price meal sitting at the chef's table, offers some extra benefit than the regular table experience. If you're paying more money because of time, the restaurant is asking the consumer to pay more for the same product. Some restaurants may go to reservation only because of popularity but that's a different thing, too.

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who is still working in the L'Enfant Plaza area. She said half of the lunch time places are closed and Starbucks shuts down right after lunch with 2 people working instead of the normal 6.

As someone who requested two spots at the downstairs counter on our visit, I found the staff very understanding and accommodating with the request. My wife and I waited patiently near the window for over a half an hour and did not find it an imposition especially since the upstair places were offered numerous times. Our time at the counter was exactly the experience we wanted, and the evening's food was very enjoyable. The complainer as Barbara and Kmango mention, does not write with the intention of helping any future understandings rather to shame you as they say. It sounds like a personal swipe. The main problem does seem to be other customers, 2 and 1, were seated before them. Perhaps in the future explaining what you will do with an odd number of people might offset any potential situation. I do think queuing in Japanese culture is important so that may have played an additional role in the situation. As to the main question, no you do not owe a customer a drink for accommodating their requests. If anything perhaps its time for you to consider a premium for sitting at the counter downstairs, something like a paying 3 course amuse bouche for $10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamachi_-_amuse_bouche.jpg

I attended two of the truffle dinners at Laboratorio in the middle of the last decade. Great experiences!

This shutdown seems more serious than 1995-6.

Kappabashi is a great place to visit and well worth the spending a few hours in Tokyo at the very least and as Cizuka says great knife shops.

I thought I would chime in with our experience in Maui and Kaui as well, but since a majority of the recent material was covered by Rovers2000 and Astrid, mine will be a little more brief and focused on the food. Maui Like previously mentioned, Costco, has a good selection of foods and gas prices compared to the rest of the island. We stocked up on some gifts items like macadamia nuts and coffee. Whole Foods in Kahului is pretty much the same as what you would expect here in the DC metro area, though probably a little smaller than some of the more newer stores. In terms of prices at checkout, we didn't find it that different from the mainland, although most people tend to focus on the milk prices being higher. There are 2 or 3 main 'organic' and 'healthier' grocery stores we found. Down to Earth in Kahului seems to follow the Whole Foods model but smaller with less selection. Mana Foods in Paia is a cross between Mom's organic market and the Takoma Park COOP. Hands down we probably liked Mana Foods the best in terms of quality of produce and meats, stopping by 3 times over our week stay. The quality at Safeway was fairly low in terms of produce and meats but its easy to see what it was packed as most people stayed within their resort or development area. In Kihei, I became particularly fond of ahi poke, so made the trip to Eskimo Candy several times which had good wasabi and spicy versions. Also we found Coconut's Fish Cafe to have good fish tacos and fish burgers, perfect for getting a meal to take on the beach before sunset. In Paia, the Paia Fish Market had a great selection of fish tacos and burgers as well. It was quite full for lunch, but definitely worth the wait. Nearby, the Ono Gelato Company had very good gelato that we had several times over the trip when we were not indulging in shaved ice. Further up Baldwin Avenue, is a small local fresh food / Korean influenced restaurant called Moana Bakery & Cafe. Great pastries and fresh good quality food. In Wailuku, we had take out from a Japanese plate lunch place called Ichiban Okazuya, which we enjoyed eating at the entrance to the Iao Valley State Park. They had good sides other than the traditional Hawaiian potato mac and cheese like seaweed salad and tofu. In Lahaina, ended up at Roy's for dinner, every plate was constructed well and quite pretty. We all enjoyed the different entries and the chocolate volcano dessert. On the road to Hana, we stopped at the Hasegawa General Store which really is an old fashioned one. In the back aisles there are every kind of switch, plumbing and electrical item you might need especially if roads were cut out. We tried to stop at Pranee's Thai but there was a baseball game and funeral going on at the same time that afternoon and the town pretty much shut down. On the eastward road out of Hana, there was a thai food truck called Ae's Thai Kitchen, a road side attraction literally, that did the trick. Kauai We stayed at the Koa Kea Hotel which houses Red Salt in Poipu. The hotel was very serene, a smaller hotel than the surrounding Sheraton and Marriott that seemed quite large in comparison to the intimate feeling of the Koa Kea. Red Salt is probably one of the best restaurants in Kauai, if not the best, but we didn't make it up to Princeville to St Regis for comparison. They were inventive in the island style. Ishihara Market in Waimea is a great local market and the lunch counter has a lot of local delicacies such as octopus poke. In Poipu, Living Markets & Cafe was the island's equivalent to Whole Foods albeit much smaller. We were surprised by the diversity of gourmet items and the quality of the grill. In Kapaa, we had take out from Mema Thai, which was tasty, but honestly because by that part of the trip we wanted some food with more spice. In terms of food, we both would have liked more simpler high quality food. I think the high end restaurants with entrees ~$35 had an over produced quality to them which were perfectly fine for one or two nights. However, eating at a few of them for total of 6-7 nights over a two week vacation revealed how similar they were. My recommendation would be to limit high end restaurants to 1-2 over a vacation. Unfortunately, there really isn't much diversity of food beyond the high end hotel/restaurant and local seafood places. From what I heard Oahu has more so that's something to look forward too for a future trip. Overall, Maui and Kauai were extremely beautiful and you really can't go wrong visiting any of the beaches or other excursions as others in the thread have commented. Almost all of the photographs we took looked incredible, it is hard to take a bad photograph on either island.

Interesting to hear your take on it. Actually part of the reason I've always liked the donrockwell forums has been the primary focus on the local DC metro area food scene.

Thanks for the update. Whenever I head over to the Mosaic and shop at either Mom's or Mediterrafish, wonder what's going on over there.

Any word on what's going on here? Drove by last week, the windows were clear and empty inside.

Chef King at the Ashby Inn created an incredible experience in our backyard that we enjoyed on our visits. Looking forward to him at Patowmack. How about these guys for Ashby?

We were just at Patowmack Farm a few weekends ago after a couple of years break. Very good night, but felt some changes would be interesting.

We just used to it bake a 2 1/2 lb Halibut after stove pan frying. It was great not to have to empty out the main oven and heat up the kitchen. It is much more of a workhorse small oven that simply a toaster oven and can't recommend it enough.

We finally made it to Izakaya Seki a few weeks ago and found the space and hospitality quite warm and charming.

We're also heading to Maui and Kauai for a vacation in the next month. Thanks for writing such a comprehensive posting about your trip Astrid. It's a great starting place for places to check out from a recent experience.

Scott Preston was riffing a bit on this idea of "...pioneers get slaughtered while settlers prosper..." in relation to computers. Does this apply to new restaurants?