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Michael Landrum

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Everything posted by Michael Landrum

  1. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that a former employee would have a different version of events than management/ownership. Eric is the paradigm, the model, the gold standard of not just talent, brilliance and a creativity that approaches if not fully achieves artistry, but also of integrity and professionalism for all young chefs to emulate. The meaning of responsibility is that when the shit goes down, you shut up and do the work. True pride is that which is too humble to lay claim to itself. That is Eric.
  2. Speaking of which, am I the only one who wishes they got their sand from Jones Beach so we could start reading stories about ironically facial-haired hipsters in flip-flops getting Hep C from 80's era hypodermic needles and used condoms? I do applaud their recondite plot to destroy Seacrets, if not all of Ocean City, through accelerated beach erosion though...
  3. Wow. I had originally logged on to express whatever inadequate words of sympathy and support I could offer to this very noteworthy and praiseworthy effort. As someone who, despite the outward appearance of enviable success, was barely able to salvage four of my six functioning operations from near total failure at one point or another, and who recently had to leave on the table what should have been my entire earnings from the past two years as well as what would have been my foreseeable earnings for the next three to four years in order to avoid an even greater failure, that inadequate sympathy and support still stands. However, the degree of uninformed or speculative vilification (or at best partially informed or mis-informed--I too am speculating here) from people purporting to be experts in the restaurant business (if I knew how to multi-quote, I would have included Don's snark-face with the above quote) forces me to comment, perhaps inappropriately, on a few basic points of restaurant ownership and operation. To be fair, the sloppy and imprecise reporting in the link to the Post above, rather than clarifying what appears to my eyes as the obvious situation, seems to have added fuel to the vitriolic fire. Defective journalism notwithstanding, to anyone with an actual knowledge of the basic workings of the restaurant business (Jeff, your admirably heartfelt and passionate reaction to this news was based, at the time, on less information than has since become available to others, and no disrespect is intended) it would be more more than reasonably likely to infer that the reviled cattle "farmer" Carl Miller (I would love to see what happens to a reporter in Texas who calls a cattle rancher a farmer, but hey, who I am I to question anyone's authenticity?--insert self-mockery smiley face here) is actually the property's leaseholder (or owner) and what most would consider to be the restaurant's actual "owner". (The dirty little secret--one of many, really--in the restaurant business is that outside of debts, liabilities, access to the check book and the account books before the investors get to see them, most of what we call "restaurant owners" don't own shit besides whatever houses, cars and jewelry they put in their wife's or kids' names). In the article, despite its flaws, it is nonetheless reasonably clear that the chef and managing partner were operating under a management agreement of some sorts and did not hold an equity stake in the business--despite the clear inequity regarding their substantial investment of sweat equity. Further, it seems reasonably inferable they were actually the victims of a third, un-named managing partner who by neglect or lack of experience and/or necessary wherewithal failed to fulfill the necessary financial accounting requirements of the agreement, thereby violating it and at some point voiding it. This by the other partners' own admission. Whether financial misconduct by this person effecting both the owner and the operators can also be reasonably inferred by the circumstances is anyone's guess. All of this pure speculation on my part, I hasten to add--but from a professionally knowledgeable position. As regrettable a loss as this is, and one that we are correct in being enraged or highly disappointed by, I would hazard to say that the named parties on both sides are equally victims in this story. I am sure that on the talent and craft and professional side, nothing will keep these creative talents from rising to their meet all of their challenges and fulfill all of their potentials. And as far as the restaurant owner is concerned, it seems as though he is making genuine efforts to restore sustainable employment positions and restaurant services to the community to the best of his ability and with whatever resources he has available (When did a family member or friend coming to the aid of another become a bad thing on this board?). On a final note, my personal apologies to all involved for hijacking this topic.
  4. News Flash, Tim Carman: Chefs have been arranging food on plates to look like penises and vaginas for years! http://www.washingto...YzC3U_blog.html It's just something we do for fun. Also, the use of strategically placed grated cheese, grated carrots, parsley, etc. to mimic the pubic "garnish", as it were, has been known for years. In fact, among the cognoscenti, the work of a true master is distinguished by his ability to artfully represent the pudendal cleft in a dish (for us it's kinda like hands are for a painter). Now that's something you don't learn on Top Chef! or The Chew... (On a related note, according to the Post, Why see the art when you can eat the buffet!--First Bite: Catalan Buffet Matches Art Exhibit http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food )
  5. Wow, what a coincidence! I can't believe you brought this up! I had a problem and I wasn't sure which thread to post my question on. I just bought an iPhone and when I tried to log on to my Prodigy account to check the USENETs for the latest quote on my Facebook shares, I got nothing. It also seems that on my iPhone, something between the Prodigy GUI and Invision doesn't quite synch and I have trouble using this site too. If anyone has written a patch in TBOL using NAPLPS that would fix this please e-mail it to me at: nawty.teen@compuserve.com I looked all over GeoCities for help on this but couldn't find anything. It's really frustrating because I can't find any reviews on sidewalk.com (my back-up to dr.com for restaurant recs) either. I just hope this same problem won't keep me from checking out all of the Hot Picks! on the new Zagat's on Google+... Thanks!
  6. Perhaps this is not a case of plagiarism, but simply an homage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xky9_aUbpBg (Warning, unless you want to see a naked Julie Christie in a bathtub, do not click on to the "John's Theme" video, where apparently things are EXACTLY what they seem).
  7. My post will actually push this firmly into the "shark on a motorcycle jumping the Fonz" territory, but I think there are some important perspectives being missed, both here and presumably (I haven't read it) in the Huffington Post article. First, to be absolutely clear, I am firmly in the "highly disapproving, solidly offended, and shocked, but sadly not surprised, at the lack of uproar since day one" category. However, and by no means do I seek to offer an apology for this, having occasion to work with many in this age and socio-economic group, I find that most middle class high school, college, and recent grad aged kids see themselves as so post-racial as to allow themselves to express--ironically, of course--highly offensive, provocative, even intentionally inflammatory, ideas as the very proof of how impossible it is for them to espouse those ideas. Any viewer of "Family Guy" or "30 Rock" or pretty much anything on Adult Swim is already familiar with this phenomenon--and this is the direct legacy of Howard Stern for those who were recently waxing nostalgic regarding his "glory" days. Hard to argue with how mainstream, entrenched, and accepted this is--it all just depends on your age group and where the arrow is pointed. In fact, I resent the smugness behind 30 Rock's self-aware, ironic but explicit racism much, much more than the idiotic tomfoolery of the Fojol Brothers, and I am surprised than no similar article has been written on the actual pervasive and far-reaching iterations of overt/covert racism and active religious bigotry on national TV, rather on the local, even parochial, food truck example. Harder to argue is the role of through the looking glass pop culture phenomenon like "Boondocks" (best line ever--Huey: "I see piss coming, I move. She saw piss coming, she stayed.")--but then again, does anyone remember Dick Gregory, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, hell, even Bill Cosby? So that was jumping the shark. Here's the shark jumping the Fonz: One, who can blame or judge these fools, and two, where is the real outrage when these 25 year olds grew up and live in a culture where they are constantly exposed to and constantly see being affirmed: 1) The sanctioned pedophilia of Toddlers and Tiaras. 2) The sanctioned child abuse of Dance Moms. 3) The obscenely glorified ethnic, racial and religious self-abasement for-profit on Bravo, etc. of Shahs of Beverly Hills, Jersey Shore, Housewives of New Jersey, and All-American Muslim, Sister Wives, Doomsday Preppers, etc. etc.. 4) The obscenely glorified sexual orientation-based self-abasement for profit on pretty much every Bravo Show, including Top Chef. Those are the obvious ones. Even more insidious, and even more wildly popular, and especially disgusting for being aimed at children (but which each and everyone of us supports every day) are the racism and ethnic, cultural and religious bigotry in the modern "critically heralded and universally adored" Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks animated films. No one is offended by Alladin? Pocahontas? Whatever jive-donkey Eddie Murphy plays in Shrek? The even jiver-zebra in Madagascar? Why don't they just re-make "The Jungle Book" as a Broadway musical with the Bandar-log in black-face, Baloo played by Stepin Fetchit, and Mowgli opening a Quik-E-Mart after borrowing from the money-lender Thuu (who he later righteously kills in the big finale so he doesn't have to pay back the filthy usurer's interest)? And why are we not up in arms at the familiarly grotesque appearance of the "Trolls" in the Harry Potter movies, gold-hoarding, bank-owning, devious, sub-human tricksters that they are? Or at the oh-so-precious, lispy and emasculated gay best friend in every romantic comedy, as perfected in Sex and the City? And as far as the argument made above that the Fojols are far worse for the fact that they make money from it--well, apart from the inherent profit motives in all of the above, and closer to the relevance to the food industry, why should they question anything they do for money when they see our supposed role models, Tom Colicchio, Anthony Bourdain, and Michael Symon degrading and abasing themselves for money every day? Or care, now that Super Mario Batali was defeated by and secretely replaced by his cousin Wario? So in short, let's hope they stop, these young idiots whose biggest crime is being stupid and completely in-line with current pop-culture norms (many of which are sacred cows of the very people doing the condemning--stereotyping the Huffington Post writers and editors here, I am). But who is going to do anything about all the rest? Good night and good luck.
  8. You are so effing wrong. There is only one thing more cutting edge than chefs with badass tattoos and that's articles about chefs with badass tattoos! Although I will say, that even more cutting edge and badass than tattoos of pig butcher charts is this: tattoos of poutine.
  9. No, but there will be a bat on hand for craft beer aficionados who believe it is occasionally ok to drink PBR after adult kickball and craft beer aficionados who believe other people should never be allowed to drink the beer they (the other people) enjoy to beat themselves to death over how to solve the Palestinian problem. That is, unless one of their mommies show up to break up the fight and make them go clean up the basement. There will also be another bat on hand for post-feminists making $150,000/year and members of historically marginalized communities who have spent their entire lives fighting for gender and gender-issue equality to beat to death anyone who uses the word "guy". Finally, a third bat for anyone who can prove he has never done a day's manual labor in his life to beat to death any servant who dares ask, "Are you still working on that?"
  10. The Living Social branch of the Washington Post is surreptitiously co-branding with me on this project on a strictly quid pro quo basis, in a deal where neither's professional integrity or basic dignity will be left intact.Actually, the swine will be urban-foraging in the alleys off Pennsylvania Avenue, not Pennsylvania. In the area soon to be known as The District Of Uber-cool, Capitol Hill Edition zone. As I mentioned above, Mr. Mendelsohn will be the object of my industrial and PR espionage, and not a partner. I should mention now, however, that Michel Richard is a partner, even though I will deny it later when legal documents bearing federal charges of perjury demonstrate otherwise.
  11. I didn't want to have Don lose this exciting "scoop" to Tom's chat tomorrow, sooo.... The Ray's group is taking the cutting edge to the cutting edge and beyond. We are pleased to announce not only our latest venture, 24 Hour Pork and Parkour Party People, but also the latest Hipster enclave, P Street Beach, or as the painfully hip (meaning--Not You!) will call it: Deep In the P Street High-Intensity Trafficking Sector. 24 Hour Pork and Parkour Party People will be the nation's first and only restaurant exclusively serving an ONLY snout and tail tasting menu--none of the lazy, inauthentic, non-gratuitously-shocking-to-prove-how badass-I-am costly, desirable, palatable cuts that are worth paying restaurant prices for--with "drink chefs" and "cookologists" toiling live at interactive Parkour installations table-side and throughout the restaurant. Service: Each group will be attended to from the moment they make their reservation (upon contract approval and after being embedded with RFID's) by a squadron on nano-drones who will surveille the guests constantly, day or night, at work, home or play, during waking hours or while sleeping, to determine dining preferences, allergies, favorite colors, political affiliations, frequency of night-time urination and possible IBS--all of which will be fed into our state of the art computer system designed in collaboration with internationally-acclaimed bathroom architect, Skip Johnson, to determine precisely the proper sound levels and necessary rates of water flow for each guest so that we can tailor their experience specially for their needs. A special hover drone equipped with an iPad3 containing satellite imagery of all of the wine producing acreage in the world plus a complete history of all of your vacation and business travels will be there to inform you of "your" wine selections and to assure you, "No, it's not corked, you just have to let it breathe a minute." If you are cool enough, the drone will let slip that he toured with Kraftwerk in 1996. That same personal squadron of nano-drones which by now has achieved self-awareness and can anticipate your needs is equipped with smart phones and will convey your order via Twitter to the kitchen without writing anything down and then monitor your progress throughout the meal and then home to gather statistical data points for rates of post-prandial intercourse. Food-runners? Try Food Parkourists!!! All food and beverages will be delivered to your table by a highly trained corps of Parkourists outfitted in image-capture spandex "Cookologist" jackets who will vigorously pass through the many Parkour installations throughout the restaurant and arrive at your table for a final, table-side demonstration of Parkour and simultaneous service. Payment will be made directly at the table via POS-enabled hover drones where your card never leaves the table. To insure and ensure your privacy, all drones will be programmed NEVER to introduce themselves by their names or utter the words "You guys". I will have my own camera-equipped drone that will "livestream" archive all of my movements, activities and alcohol consumption (pretty much the same thing, actually) to flatscreen monitors built in to each one of the degustatory stations (tables). Staff: All staff will be rigorously screened and required to be "runway-ready". All FOH and BOH members will be required to have copious sleeve tattoos, as well as "fictitious family history panel" back tattoos, and of course, a tattoo of a pig butcher chart, which will be highlighted by their custom-made Dothraki uniforms. (Now that Tom Sietsema has, after ten years of international travel, recently updated his sole, sad literary and cultural reference point from "Sex in the City" to "The Twilight Saga", I figure that in the four years it will take me to open this, he will have advanced from "Twilight" to "Game of Thrones" as his literary inspiration in his restaurant reviews). The BOH staff member with the most tattoos will be in charge of the in-house charcuterie program, provided he can provide proof of an intensive multi-day training program in the centuries-old art of charcuterie via a motorcycle license plate containing either the words "pork", "fat", or "pink salt" or knuckle tattoos spelling "pork" and "mmmm". The FOH staff member with the most tattoos will control the Vino-Drone and be eunoch-ized to make room for even more tattoos. We will have two full-time publicists--one responsible solely for getting pictures of our staff's tattoos into local and national publications, and one solely for copying each move made by Spike Mendelsohn and making it seem like it was my idea first. Sustainability: Being the nation's first and only SNOUT AND TAIL ONLY restaurant (Our motto--"Nothing. Just the oink."), we are so far beyond the cutting edge in sustainability it's not even funny. Forget about sourcing, that's not even relevant to us. We are all about and passionately committed to "placing". You see, we ONLY harvest the snout and tail (and the oink), leaving the animal fully alive. We then take motorcycle trips throughout the countryside seeking out only the finest and most socially-conscious Cambodia-born adoptees to adopt our animals after a highly-demanding placement screening and highly-photographed drone-copter airlift! Hours: As the name implies, hours will be 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until several articles are written about our being THE 24 Hour Pork and Parkour Party People party place, at which point we will start closing at 10:30. Location: Undisclosed pop-up locations throughout P Street Beach. For more info, check for updates in the "Multiple Locations" thread of the Dining Guide.
  12. On the subject, however, I will point a very obvious fact that has been overlooked in this analysis and make the case that there are actually FEWER burger places in DC then ever. How so? Not too long ago people flocked to places like The Childe Harold, Chadwick's, Sign of the Whale, The Tombs, Clyde's even, or any of a countless number of great saloons for amazing burgers at very gentle prices. The burger was the hallmark and the bragging point of the saloon culture and hand-crafted burgers abounded. People spent a little more time and care to enjoy them, together with their friends, colleagues, companions and general good company--but not a lot of money. It took a little bit more time (which people seemed to have) and required a bit more social interaction, but a great burger was never more than a few blocks away. It is today's self-absorbtion and need for immediate gratification that have put those places out of business, or out of the business of selling top-quality, affordable, straight-forward American fare. The number of higher-quality burger joints that have come into play do not come near to replacing the number of places that have disappeared. And that doesn't even begin to address the loss or marginalization of diners and joints like Linda's Place with great burgers that also far out-numbered in their time the number of Johnny-come-lately, over-priced burger joints. At the same time, the whole argument or "controversy", whether it be over burgers or over pizza, is misguided, over-wrought or even specious. Pizza and hamburgers are so woven into the fabric of American culture as to be un-remarkable--like complaining about too many bars serving Jamon Serrano and Tortilla Espanola in Spain, or too many baguettes in France, or too many felafel joints in Israel.
  13. Be careful, now that my nephew is in Wellington each winter playing in the Open, and all the time I spend getting drunk at asados and sleeping in the horse stalls down there (not to mention the Players' Club...) you might just be seeing a Hell-Burger popping up in your new neck of the woods...
  14. Just curious, and genuinely so: How do you feel about restaurant reviews that focus, to the point of fixation, on the attractiveness of the waitstaff, bar staff and host staff--and the shortness of their skirts--let alone even mention it? Me, personally, given the tremendous efforts required to counter and prevent sexual harassment in the restaurant environment, mostly by guests directed at female staff members, I have found it to be especially repugnant and repulsive. Especially when those same comments, if directed at his own co-workers, would get the reviewer fired. Thoughts?
  15. No one on your and Tom's side of the restaurant business, maybe. That's what made it so easy to get away with. People on my side of the business have always known. And no one ever needed a degree to see the stupidity of turning Kobe--even if, nay, especially if, it did indeed exist--into a hot dog or a hamburger. Not then, not now. And yet it still goes on... And the fact that it was written over six years ago and people are still falling for this bullshit is exactly my point. But hey, now we're pre-cumming at the thought of a $65 taco-based tasting menu (and feeling ripped off that we just paid $130 for the same thing at a Washington Post-owned Living Social event)...
  16. Eric, I was riffing off the "Day-O's" and the "Daylight come and me want go home's" of the song. Time to drink my rum.
  17. John, I was addressing Tom Sietsema's spending an entire paragraph being awe-struck by the $40 Kobe hot dog in his review of The Old Homestead and shuddering in ecstasy after a laying on of hands by PR preachers speaking in tongues in many similar instances since. I think there is little doubt that no special care or ingredients went into the production of that product. I also think the pervasive gullibility on the one hand, and pervasive cynical deception and empty hype on the other has been more than obvious for a full decade or more to those who are knowledgeable enough to care. Too often, it isn't just that the emperor is naked, it's that he's wearing Versace and partying with Madonna. (References intentionally dated and out of touch, in line with the Sex in the City-era provincialism of the Post's restaurant "reporting"). And it hurts the Kobe producers the way that any hyped and lauded deception hurts any honest producer or creative endeavor.
  18. Dean, you've got it wrong: http://www.flickr.co...666/2576270023/
  19. I think the real issue here, if we are arguing by analogy, is the abuse of the term Kobe Beef is the same as if one were to go to the Ritz Carlton and pay $28 for a Champagne Cocktail made with Korbel, or to Citronelle and pay $50 for Fresh Maryland Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes made out of tinned Indonesian Blue Swimming Crab. Or paying $35 for two "Day Boat" scallops because the dishwasher was listening to Harry Belafonte when he opened up the gallon tin of 10-20 scallops. It is not a trademark or AOC or cultural heritage issue, it is a deceptive practices issue--exacerbated by the pervasive ignorance of restaurant reviewers who are more concerned with bathroom decor than knowledge of food and wine; and the pervasive culture of media-whoring in the restaurant business today. N. B.: I did not mean to imply that those things occur at the Ritz or Citronelle, they were the first names to come to my mind as paragons of reputation and the finest of ingredients.
  20. Thank you for the description. It is both useful and informative. Based on what you describe it sounds like either a "new-opening" or "one-off" inconsistency with a very simple fix. I hope in the future should you find the same problem you will bring it to our attention on the spot so that we can make a more accurate analysis (and of course, immediately redress the defect as well). Again, thanks. --Michael
  21. BLT is one of the three essential pillars of the Archibald's/BLT/St. Regis-based civilization as we know it, and I am eternally grateful to their popovers and chicken liver pate for what in Aramaic is described as "Koach-Gavra".
  22. Ray's To The Third (like Ray's The Steaks at East River) is an entirely different restaurant, with entirely different goals and price points. However, we strive for consistency across the board with our sauces and preparations--even when the actual underlying cut of meat differs. At Ray's The Steaks, you most likely paid $29 for a Rib-Eye that was prepared "Diablo-Style". At Ray's To The Third and at Retro Ray's, if you order the "Steak Diablo" you receive a Top Sirloin for $17. The extra fat of the Rib-Eye definitely changes the inter-play between meat, marinade and grill sauce and the result can be quite different. It is no surprise that if you are used to the $29 version you would prefer it over the $17 version. However, and I am not sure if this clarifies or confuses, but at one point, the Diablo at Ray's The Steaks was made with a portion of the NY Strip (Top Loin) that the Top Sirloin we currently use at Retro and The Third is slightly superior to (but virtually indistiguishably from, except slighly to the better--at least according to my taste). Was the brandy mushroom cream noticeably different? (Although I disavow all responsibility for the tastes of someone who mixes Diablo Sauce and brandy mushroom cream...). Winky-smiley-thing. By the way, for some strange reason, I am reminded of one of my dearest books, Champi Meconnu...
  23. Now unfortunately, all of this Brobdingnagian brouhaha has kept me from sharing the real exciting and fun news for the day. And that is, at Ray's To The Third--that's the one with a bar but not the one next to the original Ray's The Steaks, which is really the new Ray's The Steaks with Retro Ray's next door which is kinda like the real original Ray's The Steaks but up the street from the old Ray's The Steaks, across the street from which is Ray's To The Third, which unless I've confused myself, is the one I'm talking about in this post--we will be serving free snacks at the bar and at the bar high-tops Sunday through Friday, 5:00-6:30. Good snacks. Sunday-Friday. 5:00-6:30. Free.
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