Arcturus

Worst:

Pizza/meal – Gino’s East in Chicago

Why? I loved Gino's when I went there. Sketchy, delicious food, fun location. What's not to like? In fact, one slice of that pizza (leftover) per day powered me through a weeklong stage at Alinea.

Best for me:

Dish: Escolar - New Heights

Meal: Trummer's on Main

Dessert: Olive Chocolate cake- Inox

Charcuterie: New Heights

Old-school food- Sweet pea ravioli- Palena

New-school food- Brown butter beet puree, beet foam, caviar, scallop- Trummer's on Main

Eleven's a good place as well, though the food is wildly inconsistent because of insane staff turnover. While I was in school, just about everyone in my class worked in the kitchen there at some point in time. Derek Stevens has skills, though, no doubt.

Also, after my last trip there this week, I really have to stress one restaurant in particular to try- China Star on McKnight road, in McIntyre square. It's the best authentic Szechuan food I've ever had. I'm nomming on (leftover) beautifully prepared beef tongue and tripe right now, ordered alongside smoked pork belly and garlic greens, a steaming cauldron of clear soup with tofu and greens, and tan tan noodes. Highly, highly, highly recommended. I've been there at least 8 times and never had a dish that fell short of amazing. Great service, too- the owner still recognizes me though our last visit was in July.

The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan, 2001) covers some of the same terrain.

The scientific findings destabilize the basis of Buddhist monastic taboos that distinguish between root vegetables that one kills to eat and plants that are not harmed when you pluck some of their fruit. However, there are many vegans and vegetarians who cite concern for the environment as the reason they don't eat cows.

Hi, I'm a Zen Buddhist. My teacher ate Testa not too long ago (donated generously by Logan Cox of New Heights!).

The taboos of which you speak, if I can go into a bit of detail, are open to interpretation. It's a matter of the interpretation of the teaching of "respecting life." Siddhartha himself would eat whatever was served to him, unless the animal was specifically killed for him. The general consensus is, at least in Zen, that it's something that a person may decide to do, not something that the religion/set of beliefs has them do. We all have different understanding of and viewpoints on the process by which food is created/manufactured, which in this country tends to do quite a bit of harm in a good number of cases, so we'll have different ways of absorbing and dealing with that information.

Now, tying this back into the subject of the thread, is that I find this fascinating, and brussels sprouts delicious. Every living thing is going to have some sort of defense mechanism against physical damage, so there's always going to be a conflict of interest per se when it comes to consuming anything. I think the key is to try and learn how things are raised, what impact the raising has on the surrounding environment, and to eat what's given the most respect when it's alive. Suffering is inevitable.

Teavana in Tyson's, despite the stereotypical "tea-seller's" name, has a pretty good selection of loose-leaf teas. Also, Whole Foods and Wegman's both have a good selection. I have teas from all three...

How about I substitute the word "infantile" with "solipstic" and apologize to anyone's work which I may have insulted unduly?

I should also note, in apology, that in regards to some of the trends I may have criticized above, there is a GREAT difference between being the innovator (or being a chef whose entire body of work embraces that philosophy or technical approach) and being a follower who merely turns the exciting breakthroughs of another chef into just another tired, trite, over-hyped trend.

And, really, and this is the point I was making, is "catering to your every whim and desire while indulging all of your senses in the utmost of luxury and spoiling you with the rarest and most decadent of tastes and costliest of ingredients" any better or more adult than going to some place for an over-priced bowl of cereal when you don't feel like cooking but do feel like meeting friends out?

Inherently? It's tough to say either way, I'd think. Restaurants and their appeal are subjective. Like I said, it's not a "bad" idea, it just rubs me the wrong way- but my opinion is certainly not absolute truth. My weakness comes with the inability to understand why this restaurant idea resonates with people (save for those with kids- that isn't something that I thought about) to the point where it's a viable market option.

But then the paragraph above that, that's where the interesting stuff lies. Isn't that the nature of any movement or period in art? Every single breakthrough in any artistic field ends up being copied in some form or another, and then gets turned into a cliche- it's the nature of being on the cutting edge. Food, however, has this great system of measurement, mentioned a couple of weeks ago to me in a discussion with my chef, is that it's measured by one standard over all others- "Is it fucking delicious?" No matter what it is, taking aside the obvious subjectivity and idiosyncrasies that come with it, if food is delicious, people will like it. Thanks to the innovators of so many things in both classical and modern cooking, we have a vast range of techniques that can be utilized in achieving that goal, and I think that the argument is clear that we're all the better off for it.

But, then again, what do I know? I have to be up in six hours to go get my tweezers, house-cured salmon, and isi-whip ready for brunch service.

Hmmm...an asparagus spear in a test tube; truffled pop corn,; foie gras ice cream,; cotton candy (or other carnival-based food) anything; "watch me eat a worm" organ dishes; unsafe, amateur, Brady Bunch-style "Hey, let's make some charcuterie and we can save the prom!" playing with sausages in the basement; all that erector set and surgical tweezer plating with micro this and mini that; a mushroom gelee shaped in a mushroom-shaped mold so it will look like a "mushroom" on the plate (kinda like Beavis and Butthead's butt-shaped tatoo of a tatooed butt that they wanted to get tatooed on their butts; Mr. Wizard Junior Chemistry Set (not recommended for children under 11) powders and foams; "adult" grilled cheese sandwich apps for $12.95...

Do I really need to go on? There's still dessert lists to go into.

Well, I get the idea, but the case for any of that being infantile is subjective, I'd think. What about any of that makes it infantile in your point of view?

I can think of any number of fine-dining trends and practices that are equally, if not more, infantile at heart and in nature but that suffer from the additional sins of being self-delusional and self-glorifying, masturbatory, disdainfully irrelevant, and with even more of a rip-off mark-up than the innocent if not entirely innocuous cereal. The other main difference being that cereal is something that people actually enjoy and don't just pretend to.

Two simple things to remember which are often overlooked in the hospitality business, regardless of price or quality: 1) A restaurant, despite what the chef or owner wants it to be, is first and foremost a public, social, identity-driven gathering space; and 2) Exclusive by definition excludes and is therefore necessarily exclusionary.

More and more I am finding this to be the DC theme song, so...Get out your golden calculators and lean a little bit closer...

I'll bite. :-)

Elaborate?

I am well aware of that. But as a business venture, who is to say that the owners of the Cereal Bowl don't have as much invested in their business - in time, emotions, and money?

(And just as an aside, I have both worked full-time (in kitchens, even) and been a "Suzy Homemaker." Guess which gives me more time to shop and cook for my family?)

I'm certainly not trying to take anything away from the human aspect of the business- like I said, I'm all for small businesses opening. It's the concept that irks me.

Let me be clear, I support the opening of small businesses (I work for one), and the opening of this one is no different. It's the concept that I see as indicative of a greater issue indicating the way food is viewed in America. I'm certainly not "intolerant of other preferences," nor do I have any sort of issue with home cooks (in fact I encourage people to do so and love it when I hear it), there's just something about the concept of going out to buy a bowl of cereal that resonates deeply with me. It strikes a nerve, if you will.

I almost feel as if eating actual food is becoming a lost art form- something to be sampled every so often in between visits to premade commercial troughs. I understand the convenience and price aspect, and how it appeals to the target demographic. However, the hamburger comparison is a bit skewed in my opinion- the labor and effort that goes into creating a very good hamburger and bun is far more than what will ever be opening a box of cereal. The cooks and chefs that work with and prepare food from scratch work immensely hard, long hours and put our bodies through hell to do so, so understandably we tend to take a great deal of pride in what we do.

This concept is everything that's wrong with American food culture. It's everything that many of us that cook for a living are trying to fix- that convenience, ease, and engineered mediocre palatability should be the cornerstones of a good meal. It makes me relentlessly, unmitigatingly, frothing-at-the-mouth angry. Food to me is about sharing the fruits of our labor and passion to the guests, not opening a dispenser and letting the masses graze.

Have we as a society reached the level of laziness that opening a box, pouring the contents into a bowl, and pouring a liquid over top is now too much work? We now have to leave the place where we would normally do that, and then spend the time and energy getting to another place to pay more for someone else to pour our cereal for us? That we, as a society, care so little about the process of creating and constructing good, decent food, that we're going off to pay far above market price for refined sugar, refined grains, and milk? Unfathomable.

The "food" being peddled at this joke of a foodservice establishment is the easiest food that there is to prepare, period. It's designed to be easy enough for Suzie homemaker, with her used-once saute pans, to prepare while holding a child in her arms. It doesn't matter to me if it's cereal with stuff in it, or mixed into ice cream, or with other cereal- it's ridiculous. Unless I'm facing certain death, I will never eat there.

You can dehydrate in a convection oven, if you have a sheet tray and a silpat. Set it to low temp, fan on high, door slightly open. You could also think about getting freeze-dried fruits and flavorings and then buzzing them in a blender or food processor, then running the powder through a sieve.

Apparently somebody at Trummers read Don's review and decided corrective action was in order. Service was exceptional. Everything was well paced, perfectly timed, and delivered to the table in exactly the right way. The service was excellent.

*waves*

Thank you so much for the review and kind words. We're always striving to do better.

Mitsuwa market is awesome. Remember getting some killer udon there, as well as browsing an excellent selection of japanese ingredients.

I think Five Guys is solid, but unspectacular. American cheese doesn't do it for me, their meat is generally slightly underseasoned, the bun is barely of supermarket quality, and the fries lack any crispness whatsoever, though they still taste better than some of the "fast food" burger places. The toppings are fresh, the sauces are solid, but ultimately it's just "good."

Bangkok balcony, on Forbes, is some of the best Thai I've ever had. Been there 5+ times, and everything is always delicious. Nothing groundbreaking culinarily, but a very cool dining room and nice ambiance.

Hyeholde (http://www.hyeholde.com/) is the only restaurant in the city that's doing anything remotely interesting in terms of fine dining. In a building built in 1931, this is the best upscale restaurant in the city, and the only one that I would ever consider going to. A chef that genuinely loves what he does, very solid service, food grown on-site, and a boatload of passion make this a place worthy of spending the money to eat there- the only, singular, upscale place in Pittsburgh about which I will say that. It's not Komi, it's not Citronelle, but it's the closest that Pittsburgh has, and it's well-respected among the chefs at Culinary school there, which says something.

Le Pommier, on Carson St, on the South Side, is a very solid French Bistro. Solid cooking techniques, great service, and a nice wine list.

I hated Primanti Brother's when I tried it. It's definitely drunk-food. Also, everything shuts down ridiculously early in the city and surrounding area, so if you're hungry around 2am, there's veeeery little to get. Fast until the morning.

Heart isn't as offal as one might think. Prepared correctly, it's fantastic.

The problem with this though is like Central, the rest of the menu is so darned good, how do you go and eat a burger? I love me some burgers, but...

I will say though that eating a burger on the onyx lit bar would probably improve the burger taste to me just because that bar makes the whole room so comforting and relaxing, and eating while relaxed has to make food taste better. And can I just give a big kudos to the bartender a couple of weeks ago when I was in at the bar with the Hubby we ordered two glasses of wine while waiting for friends to join us for dinner and they poured a small tasting pour first to make sure we liked the wine. That is really nice, and I really appreciated it. But pretty please if someone from Trummer's is listening put your red wines by the glass on the bar menu there wasn't a page for them the other week and I can't remember there being hooks on the side of the bar where the hostess stand is, I know it is a little strange, but especially in this day and age where purse stealing has unfortunately become more common it is really nice to be able to hook your purse right in front of you, so it isn't on the floor or out of site and isn't in someone's way. Maybe there just wasn't one near my seat, but I couldn't remember finding one there.

I will tell Stefan tomorrow. More than likely, we'll do the hooks, though no promises. If someone stole your purse there, we'd have it on camera and there would be a gaggle of people after whomever did it, so don't worry too much about it.

As for the surprises, I can't reveal anything more than duckfat, and a 70/30 ratio.

Does everyone really like "surprises" in their hamburgers?

Just about everyone that's tried this one has.

Trummer's has a killer burger on the menu. By far the best I've had in/around DC, and that includes Hellburger and Palena. Obscene fat to meat ratio, with some surprises in terms of ingredients and seasonings. Very good.

What KMango said.

Not at all. I'm saying that tiny little tastings of de-constructed dishes - sweet or savory - have gotten trite. That sort of thing was innovative maybe, oh, six years ago? In another few years it'll join squiggles-of-raspberry-coulis-with-a-knife-drawn-through-it-presentations in the hall of culinary shame.

Don knows not to take me too seriously.

Arcturus, I welcome a good discussion, but the previous post was meant tongue in cheek. I spent four ten hour days packing my house, one full day chasing movers around with a vacuum cleaner, a night on the bedroom floor of the new house and the next night on a sofa in the new house, because the bedroom is uninhabitable now, and have been walking around zombie-like saying "I know it's in a box somewhere" for the past two days, and only this morning was I able to cook something (a mug of chai, if you call that cooking; I found the teakettle) in the new kitchen, so when we went to BlackSalt for dinner, woefully underdressed ("I can't find any shoes!"), it was a little oasis of calm in the dessert of red sawdust that still coats the new place from the floor refinishing (completed on moving day, two weeks behind schedule), despite MrP's vacuuming the walls all day before the movers arrived. All of which is to say that the apple pie really hit the spot so I wanted to praise it, and that I'm feeling kinda punchy just now and need to stop typing and log the f***off the computer and hit the sofa again.

Also I need to decide where to chow tomorrow night.

yeah, Don, tmi, off-topic, go ahead and delete...

Sounds hectic! I'm glad you enjoyed the pie. Allow me to explore a little further...

The "little" aspect of that I would tend to agree with, but with the caveat that I think that desserts have to run a fine line in the size department, especially outside the context of a tasting menu. I think that in a fine dining, or at least upscale context, the "gigantic piece of well-recognized dessert" is every bit as trite and pointless as selling a dessert that consists of no more than three bites. With the former, there's the issue of beating a dead horse in that a big part of dining is sating an appetite, and doing anything past that, again in a fine dining context, is pointless. With the latter, there's the issue of leaving the guest unsatisfied in that they were done eating the dish before the sensation of taste started diminishing, and they could also possibly be hungry.

Inside of a tasting menu, it's a totally different ballgame, obviously.

Personally, I don't care how the dessert is made, as long as it tastes good. But I also like to push boundaries. As for where to chow, see my sig!

KMango: Agreed! There is room for both. It's all about context.

Funny, actually, considering that Citronelle was/is pretty cutting-edge in terms of desserts. Maybe there are no smoking vanilla beans, but there's a lot of behind-the-scenes wizardry that one may not expect there.

You know what's really good at BlackSalt? Dessert. None of this namby-pamby, precious, deconstructed "pie" or "napoleon" (always in quotes on the menu) nonsense. Nope. When they have apple pie, like they did last night, you don't get a cookie with three paper-thin slices of apple and caramel "foam" and three drops of créme anglais.

My curiosity has gotten the better of me, so I'll ask you to elaborate. Are you saying that the only desserts worth serving are the ones that have been around for 50 years? Is there no place for innovation? What about, say, the desserts at Volt?

(Sorry, Don, for the tangent. If this needs to be moved, go for it.)

What do chefs think of foodies?

Let's be honest, a lot of us are kind of geeks when it comes to food. It's like how I imagine Star Trek actors feel about Trekkies. The actors are just normal people doing a job, they're not obsessed with it. Even if they may have a passion for the craft, it doesn't mean that they're "fanatical" about it the way the "fans" are.

Are we annoyances? People with presumptuous questions that pester over nuances that no one should really care about? "I noticed in episode 405A that the Vulcan ambassador was wearing a uniform clearly belonging to the Romulan Tal'Shiar secret police. I hope someone got fired over that!" "Pfft. That zuccini is soooo last season. How can you pair that with yogurt?"

Are we something to be merely tolerated since we help pay the bills?

I know the "correct" answer is, "We love foodies! They support us! Shout out to the fans!!!"

But what is the truth? Do chefs secretly want to get up there, put on their best William Shatner and say, "Get a life, will you people?" Or do chefs truly enjoy having us around?

Just something I think about.

I would say that chefs (and aspiring ones like myself) absolutely need foodies to be successful. There's a tangible difference between having people that are passionate about food and people that are there for a meal in the dining room. Foodies are what make up a restaurant's core clientele- the people that actually come back to see what new stuff the chef is going to roll out. We need to know that there will be people around to try the new, off the wall stuff that we make. And that's actually more true as the restaurant gets more "out there" in terms of creativity.

You can go to just about any decent grocery store and they'll custom grind for you.

A blend of black pepper, onion powder, granulated garlic, salt, coriander, crushed red pepper, and a few others. It is pretty killer on red meat.