sheldman

Tyler Cowen's article is to enjoying food, as Chester Brown's graphic novel "Paying For it" is to intimacy. Here is what I mean. Chester Brown is a brilliant cartoonist, whose cartoon history about Luis Riel (part of 19th century Canadian history) is absolute genius. But "Paying For it," his memoir and polemic about his experiences with and advocacy for being a consumer of prostitution, is really disturbing. It demonstrates a really odd perspective on, or inability to deal with, human relationships. Tyler Cowen knows a lot about food. But entirely missing from his article is any sense of actual human connection. It is all just transaction, "rationality" (which is actually not rational at all), and selfishness. I was thinking about this as I ate dinner for the millionth time at Radius Pizza tonight, which I love. I have a relationship with Radius Pizza. Sometimes we have our disagreements, but we care about each other.

Very nice dinner last night. The warmed spinach salad ($9) with gnocchi and truffle vinaigrette is really great. (I assume that the truffle experts among you would tell me that it is not real truffles but merely oil infused with quasi-truffles, or whatever, but I am not a truffle expert and it was really really delicious.) Everything else very good too.

Speaking for myself, not anyone else: My ideal endgame in the Fojol thing in particular would be something like (1) the Fojol bros recognize that part of their existing schtick (sp?) rubs some reasonable people the wrong way with no real countervailing value, and that they work towards some change in their style, less costumery of an identifiably "Indian" vibe and more focused on the circus/carnie/medicine-show thing that is the better/funnier element of what they're doing, (2) more people get less defensive about the possibility that their thinking has elements of what is generally classified as "racism" for lack of a better term - that even if they are not white supremacists at heart, they enjoy/countenance/ignore aspects of society that are rooted in conflict and disparities in power between ethnic/geographic groups, and the world would be a better place if there was less of this. This particular fight was started by an "open letter" that was pretty obnoxious in its self-certainty, and rubbed some people the wrong way. I wouldn't have written the "open letter" in that particular way, but on the other hand it did make some people think. Sometimes you've got to yell, to be heard. One post, above, asks what the Fojol's "crime" was. There was no "crime," but I think that asking the question in this way - and, in the same vein, asking "why are you up in arms?" - is an unproductive defensiveness or belittling of a conversation worth having, as is the message, "this is different from tattooed white supremacists, so it's not worth talking about." Behavior is not nicely divided into "crimes"/"things worth getting up in arms about" on the one hand, and "stuff not worth talking about" on the other. For all of us who are not tattooed white supremacists - good for us! But that is a beginning, not an end. So what sort of behavior and cultural representations would exist in an ideal world? Hard question! Is Apu ok because he is a fleshed-out character, and Jar-Jar an obnoxious utilization of backwards stereotypes? I think so - but obviously there is no perfect answer. Are the Fojol bros bad guys, or just bros who stepped in something that they didn't fully think through, or people doing something that deserves no pushback at all? I take option B - but there is no perfect answer. Doesn't mean it's not worth working through or discussing. I am just happy that Cornel West showed up on 30 Rock.

Just a quick note to say that we had a fantastic dinner on the patio here, a few days ago. The online menu is (I believe) accurate, so I won't use my own words to describe, other than to say that everything was delicious. Service was very friendly if a bit slow, but that's cool when you're sitting on a patio, in a good mood, on a pretty day. Nice to see that it got a good writeup in Sietsema's spring dining guide, which went online today.

In a related vein, see this recent blog entry on the NYT, called "Do We Amuse You?," about the use of Indian stereotypes in American humor. I am reading an interesting book ("The Great Oom: The Mysterious Origins of America's First Yogi"), which says that "fewer than eight hundred Indians in total immigrated to the United States between 1820 and 1900." That statistic (which I guess is probably true) blew my mind, and I think it helps explain why, even now, Indians are often viewed as "other," whether interesting, risible, or threatening.

Even better - a food truck with unpaid interns and hip volunteers!

I am bothering to post, only because it has been a while since anyone posted in this thread. What I will say has been said better, upstream: very well-conceived and very well-executed food, somewhat small portions, not inexpensive. I think that there is a little psychological disconnect between the location and the cuisine - on the strip with a weird old grocery store, a store with vacuum cleaners in the window, etc., etc., a restaurant at this price range is a little funny, potentially leading to a feeling of "I didn't expect to spend this many $." The tiny ice cream sandwich annex (Sugar Magnolia) adds to this potential for confusion, I think - as do the hip t-shirts on the staff. But when I think specifically about the food and the very good service, the price is certainly fair. And the food was delicious.

Hey cute doggie with big ears - get out while you can!!!!

FWIW, the "finalists" - the handful of best essays on the question as chosen by the NYT's panel - are here. DR members who thought it was a wrong-headed question to begin with, will not be convinced to change their minds, I know. Those (like me) who wrestle with the meat question will find some thought-provoking material. [edited to add: I am not trying to stir up debate, and probably won't participate if there is any - I have done enough of that, here, this week. Just thought that those who had read the earlier discussion might be interested in the essays]

Looks like the product I mentioned is probably shirataki, packaged for people who don't go to Asian grocery stores.

I saw a line of this noodle product in a grocery store in California the other day, labeled as having no effective carbs, no gluten, no this no that no the other thing. Did not try it. It is apparently made from konnyaku root, but I don't know what that is.

It may be time to let this thread die, but I have one more thought about it that is interesting to me: I think that the way this plays out, on this site and in our city, is very much an artifact of the particular and pretty odd culture of Washington DC. We have (1) a lingering but almost-gone old South element of the culture, (2) a dominant downtown industry (i.e., Government power players and those who cater to them or try to influence them) of which old-fashioned 20th century business attire is a major signifier of in-group status, (3) tourists, who dress differently and who annoy most of us residents in one way or another (how they dress, how they stand on the escalator, how they take up the parking spaces, etc.) even while our service industries are dependent on them; and (4) a segment of residents with enough money and interests to go to the "good" restaurants who are not part of the local power game and not part of the necktie-or-business-dress establishment and are happy about that (not only me but also (I am guessing) the commenter above with the Minor Threat avatar) . All of these things, together, lead to the conflict. There was an article about this "dress code" issue in the Post a few years ago, in which pro-dress-code folks took the position, "That casual stuff may be fine in California, but this is DC." But DC, like all places, changes eventually - even while the people who like the old customs of the local elite say (as their counterparts have said, ever since at least as far back as ancient Rome) that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

To Levon Helm, great musician and singer, who is apparently not going to be with us much longer.

Various people have continued to mention frustration with restaurants not "enforcing" "their" dress "codes." Frustration may be eased, or at least redirected, by recognizing that this is not what is happening. Restaurants with dress codes enforce them. Citronelle says (eg on Open Table and elsewhere) that jackets are required - and I'm happy to go along with that, with no adolescent desire to rebel against Michel Richard. Corduroy says "no shorts" with an exclamation point, even - and so no shorts it is! But places that don't have those rules, don't have them. This leads to some discomfort among people who are happier in places where all patrons follow the dress standards of some particular subculture (e.g., the GQ-reading subculture, or the downtown DC power subculture, or others). But it is not a matter of failure to enforce a dress code.

I really am not intending to pick a fight, and I will try to make sure that my tone is right here, to make that clear ... but if I fail in my tone, again please understand that I am not trying to stir things up I suggest that: a) To say that a man's style of dress shows respect to the chef and the restaurant, is to overemphasize a very limited view of how one can show respect to the chef and the restaurant. If I show up in lesser dress, but treat every staff member with a smile, order somewhat more food than I might really need, ask questions in order to learn, tip well, and leave promptly when I am done - then I sure would hope that the chef and owners would feel much more respected, than if I had shown up dressed "right" but neglected to do some of the other things. In my admittedly biased view, I think that those who dress "right" are at least as likely to neglect those other things, as are people who dress somewhat down-market as I do. b. It is possible to get multiple dates, in various styles of dress. Really. c) I think that those who are concerned about what other diners wear are, mostly, concerned with other people's clothes as a demonstration of respect not to "the chef," "the restaurant," "the date," etc., but to themselves as fellow customers - or with having a certain feeling of poshness as they eat. I'm not saying that this makes the preference illegitimate, but I think that is what the preference is.

To take this one level less meta, and back to dress codes - I had a very nice dinner at Bistro Bis the other day. I showed up in probably slightly shabby but presentable comfortable clothes and denim jacket, and was pleased to be treated just as nicely as the 90+ percent of other patrons who were coming from their suit-wearing jobs. The percentage of people in the city who have the $ and inclination to spend lots of money at dinner is not so great. I think it is smart for restaurants - all but the very most formal and old-fashioned few, who are mining a particular formal and old-fashioned vein - to welcome everybody in that demographic, even those of us who don't wear nice clothes for a living. I think it is smart for other patrons to recognize also that wearing a particular costume is not the sine qua non of respectfulness.

But Elisir doesn't say it's business casual, it says (on open table) "smart casual," a term that I don't see defined anywhere on open table but a term that seems to imply (to me at least) a level more casual than business casual. If the restaurant wants to be more uptight about dress than that, they can be, but it is probably an intentional decision not to be.

I see a vegan just waiting to come out.

I am not an expert on meat production, but I believe (and some quick research backs up my belief) that the great majority of that corn and soy is being eaten by livestock. In other words, going towards meat. Not sure whether you were just being funny, or positing an ethical quandary for soy-burger-eating vegetarians, or throwing up your hands and saying "everything sucks why bother," but ...

Besides, pork bits in everything have become so trite. Fried shallots are the wave of the future.

I think that these responses are too easy. Eating meat does raise ethical issues, if you believe (as I think most of us do believe) that every way of obtaining meat causes some pain to animals, that the vast majority of meat in our country is obtained in ways that cause much more suffering to animals as well as bad effects on humans (present and future), and that these are things that "matter" in an ethical sense. (You can say "it's natural for us to eat meat," but a lot of things that most of us would call unethical are also natural.) Now, you can certainly say (and I do say) that it is "ethically ok" to eat meat in some situations despite these ethically-relevant negative factors. But it's not exactly obvious why that would be. On the other hand, it's also not exactly obvious why it's ethically ok to do all sorts of other things that we lucky prosperous few do all the time. We give ourselves ethical breaks, as a matter of course. It is worthwhile sometimes to make ourselves think about how often we do that, and why we do it, and whether we should do less of it, I think.

For what it's worth, I tried savored.com based on this discussion, and had a seamless experience getting, and using, a reservation at Masa 14. Nice to save some $. Remember to tip on the full amount, not the bill after 30% off - our server did mention (after i asked what the original total was, for tipping purposes) that people tend to forget that.

It is so hard to know what to say, on this site, about a mediocre experience - especially about a place that I want to succeed. I looked at my second comment above, and was very surprised to see my mention of the fact that the mushroom sandwich, which was great, was $13. Now it is $17, and was done with less care. This was emblematic of our most recent experience. I don't know the economics of the business, and so don't know whether the prices are "too high" in some objective sense, but it feels that way. And I don't know whether, maybe, last night was just an off night for the cooking in general. So I don't know, maybe I should not have said anything here, but in light of my earlier raves I felt that it was more honest to say something.

After a first visit to Mintwood Place for dinner, I am less enthusiastic than others. There were parts of the dinner that were very good; so I don't mean to be too negative. Overall I would say that the cooking is excellent, but the menu is odd and the service was worse than odd. When I say that the menu is odd, I mean two things: (1) it has a "split personality," as though there were two people in charge, one of whom wants to be high-end-faux-rustic-American (pickled deviled eggs! escargot hushpuppies (which were excellent)! chipotle almonds! a sort of beet-and-goat-cheese panini thing!) and the other of whom wants to be stiff French restaurant (waiter: we do not use spices here). (2) those two sides of the split personality - the new-American-hip and the French - do have one thing in common, which is that they care very little for anyone who doesn't want to eat meat. Bacon bacon everywhere! And veal in the shad! And you can't get more dismissive than to say, on the menu, that there is a vegetarian dish available, but not say what it is - and then, orally, it turns out to be a bland-sounding risotto that the waiter practically sneers at a diner for even thinking about. And maybe the salmon and lentils would be good (as someone suggested in a post above), but if it is, the waiter ought to be told that it is, because when asked about it he almost fell asleep just thinking about it. Beyond this, the service was slow and inattentive - we had to ask twice for some of the drinks, for the promised bread, for a dessert that was ordered and never came, and so forth.

You may never go to Montgomery. But maybe, like me, you will be living in a hotel for a month while in trial. Or maybe you will go on a civil rights history tour. If you go, you should try a new restaurant that opened just a couple of weeks ago, downtown, called Central. If it stays as good as it was when I stumbled onto it last night, you will be hearing about it in your food magazines, etc., in the future. It was absolutely fantastic, sophisticated but moderately priced, southern (particularly, Alabama) food. I sat at the bar, with very friendly and knowledgeable bartender, and gorged myself on small plates. Good bread, baked right there. Incredible pimiento cheese (spicy). Locally-grown vegetables, pickled on premises. Shrimp and hominy - not shrimp and grits, which have become cliche, but hominy, with a little bit of sausage and (again removing it from the trite) avocado and radish. They source everything locally, apparently except for the duck because there's no good ducks in central Alabama. And it is absurdly inexpensive for what it is, in a beautiful room with friendly and attentive staff.