Eater

[Sneakeater]

3 hours ago, backyardchef said:

Source ? 

If ya mean re Sietsema, the passages and corrections quoted by @Orik in the post preceding mine:

1.  The editor's corrections show Sietsema's apparent ignorance of any difference between shrimp and prawns.

2.  But more to the point, Sietsema's remark that "most shrimp (and seafood for that matter) are shipped from far-flung locales, and they’re not that expensive", shows a disbelief in grades of ingredient quality, as if all "shrimp (and seafood for that matter)" were of equal quality.  My mother would frequently say that there's no difference between cheap steak and expensive steak.  I didn't even know I liked steak until I grew up and learned she was wrong.

If ya mean re my mother, I was there.  My brother could confirm the quotes -- but I'm not sure he acknowledges differences in ingredient quality, either.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

(To be stupidly clear about the steak [and ingredient quality in general], I'm not talking about cheap cuts v. expensive cuts.  I'm talking about high-quality meat/whatever v. low.)

Edited November 19, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

I mean, I'm sure Sietsema wouldn't deny there's a difference between the steak cooked at Gallagher's and the steak cooked at Outback, justifying the price differential between them.  He seems to comprehend steakhouses.  (Indeed, he thinks restaurants that aren't remotely steakhouses are steakhouses.)

He just doesn't understand that the same applies to just about everything, including seafood.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

3 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

(Indeed, he thinks restaurants that aren't remotely steakhouses are steakhouses.)

Or maybe it's just that "steakhouse" is the only category of expensive restaurant he can approve of (because it's the only one where he can understand what goes into making them expensive), so if he he doesn't want to slam an expensive Mexican restaurant he has to characterize it as a steakhouse.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Sneakeater

[backyardchef]

I enjoyed that very much although it did not answer my question. 

[Sneakeater]

Oh I think I see what you meant!

I have no idea where my mother sourced her margarine.

(That was a joke.  But I do think I see what you meant.)

[Sneakeater]

(I mean, I do know where my mother sourced her margarine:  Food Fair on Merrick Road between Ocean Avenue and Grove Street.)

Edited November 20, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Wilfrid]

Prepare to be shocked again. I see someone inserted an explanatory link. I hope Luke clicked on it.

 

Quote

 

But when I tried to order mine medium rare, our server looked at me like I was speaking another language: “We don’t do medium rare,” they said. “Our steaks are cooked well, medium, rare, and blue.”

Blue? Before I could ask, they had shuffled off to another table.

 

https://ny.eater.com/2023/11/27/23961519/le-relais-de-venise-lines-famous-steak-frites

[small h]

In which Robert Sietsema recognizes that maybe some of the wine is stored at another location.

Quote

As befits the new generation of wine bars like Claud with brief menus of ambitious food, there are only 11 starters and five main courses, while offering six wines by the glass ($15 to $25), along with access via a QRL code to the vast wine list at Parcelle. It brims with over 400 bottles, including Champagnes, Burgundies, and Barolos, topping out at around $2500, though there are lots of choices in the $80 range.

 

[Orik]

4 hours ago, Wilfrid said:

Prepare to be shocked again. I see someone inserted an explanatory link. I hope Luke clicked on it.

 

https://ny.eater.com/2023/11/27/23961519/le-relais-de-venise-lines-famous-steak-frites

Better bleu than bleh

I feel like Luke should google the ingredients of the secret sauce. 

[voyager]

I've never understood the allure of Relais de Venise.    Cattle call reception, cheek by jowl with tourists, just adequate salad, "steak" and frites.    I suppose on a fomo basis, worth our one visit, some 25 years ago.   But would I go again?    Not bloody likely.

The sauce I always considered a variation of Bearnaise.   All well and good, however Bearnaise has always been good enough for me.

Edited November 28, 2023 by voyager

[Orik]

The sauce is a very loose chicken liver pate with mustard

[Sneakeater]

Which is exactly what it tastes like.

[Wilfrid]

18 hours ago, small h said:

In which Robert Sietsema recognizes that maybe some of the wine is stored at another location.

 

Maybe Terroir was a teachable moment.

[small h]

Never too old to learn.

[Sneakeater]

So apparently Eater thinks it's OK to charge $38 for four potatoes if the writer is familiar with their exotic sourcing but not to charge $24 for two shrimp er prawns if the writer is clueless.

[Orik]

I'm about to make Eater a special project. 

[backyardchef]

I love this thread. 

[Sneakeater]

Just to keep @backyardchef happy, note here how Sietsema happily engages with the owners of a new Bengali restaurant.  But "it's not his job to know" who Paul Grieco is, much less check with him, before publicly asserting that Grieco engages in fraudulent business practices.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Sneakeater

[backyardchef]

26 minutes ago, Sneakeater said:

Just to keep @backyardchef happy, note here how Sietsema happily engages with the owners of a new Bengali restaurant.  But "it's not his job to know" who Paul Grieco is, much less check with him, before publicly asserting that Grieco engages in fraudulent business practices.

"Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives."

[GerryOlds2TheReturnofGerry]

Back in the day, when I was (more) naive about the restaurant industry, I enjoyed Shitshow Week. But now, especially after the past few years, this list feels less and less necessary.

Also, even just glancing, it looks like there's plenty for MFFers to rip apart here.

[Wilfrid]

Like: 

Quote

One of the cuisines hardest to get right in NYC is the Cajun and Creole cooking of New Orleans.

Oh, that's one cuisine? Weird that it has two names.

I always wondered why the food at K-Paul's and Antoine's was so similar. :heavy-sarcasm:

[mongo]

10 hours ago, GerryOlds2TheReturnofGerry said:

Back in the day, when I was (more) naive about the restaurant industry, I enjoyed Shitshow Week. But now, especially after the past few years, this list feels less and less necessary.

Also, even just glancing, it looks like there's plenty for MFFers to rip apart here.

 

how dare he leave foxface natural off his list?!! the bounder.

[Orik]

I was disappointed that we didn't make the cut. There's always next year.
 

Quote

 making what must be the world’s first offal PBJ. 

No https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=588873340&sxsrf=AM9HkKn5INWQ1LHt_OeSU7iaXyDTQnbfXQ:1702003880492&q=foie+gras+pb%26j&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinx8_F6v6CAxWWlIkEHfN_D6MQ0pQJegQICRAB&biw=2560&bih=1283&dpr=1.5

No https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=588873340&sxsrf=AM9HkKkrmVL6NGNFyh7VoeJvlbSN9-NLEA:1702003962148&q=chicken+liver+pb%26j&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvuMfs6v6CAxVRjYkEHevUAEkQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=2560&bih=1283&dpr=1.5

No https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=588873340&sxsrf=AM9HkKlDN1W_Luvr2Vdz7RfrQd0dxvxs-w:1702004030391&q=liverwurst+pb%26j&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJz4yN6_6CAxUpv4kEHTgsDZQQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=2560&bih=1283&dpr=1.5

[Sneakeater]

I said a little while ago that I thought you couldn't be a valid professional restaurant reviewer if you didn't cook seriously.  Let me try to explain.

Every Monday Eater NY has a column where Eater writers state their favorite restaurant dish of the past week.  Last Monday, Melissa McCart shouted out a dish at Foul Witch:  smashed Upstate Abundance potatoes with herbed beurre blanc and paddlefish roe.

Obviously cognizant of the blowback Eater got after Robert Sietsema ignorantly accused Fox Nat of sharp business practices for charging $24 for two shrimp er prawns, McCart emphasized that this $38 potato dish was worth it because it used a "designer potato" called Upstate Abundance.  To support her assertion, she linked, not some high-cost supplier selling these potatoes to consumers for a fortune, but a catalog entry for seed potatoes, selling them for $11.95/lb.  McCart apparently doesn't know there's such a thing as seed potatoes, which are bought by producers for the purpose of generating crops rather than sold to consumers as food.  She seems to think that restaurants buy and cook seed potatoes, or that seed potatoes are the same price as the potatoes growers produce from the seed potatoes they invest in.

So when I saw last Saturday that among the dozens of varieties of potatoes my favored Greenmarket purveyor offers was Upstate Abundance, I decided to try some.  Indeed, I decided to replicate the Foul Witch dish.

The thing to emphasize here is that Upstate Abundance has no special status among the dozens of potato varieties this purveyor offers.  They all go for the same price.  That price is about twice as high as my local supermarkets charge for Yukon Gold potatoes, meaning that they're $3.50/lb. instead of $1.35 (and not anything near $11.95).  These are hardly high-cost luxe ingredients.

Moreover, this isn't some special Designer Potato:  it's a recently introduced hybrid.  I agree that it's a particularly good one (and is especially good for smashing) (which is what my purveyor recommends you do with them).  But this is no more a Designer Potato than Honeycrisp is a Designer Apple or the NuMex varieties are Designer Chili Peppers or Müller-Thurgau is a Designer Wine Grape.  There are botanists/agronomists, usually public university-affiliated (this potato came out of the State part of Cornell), whose job it is to come up with hybrids that have notable or useful qualities of one kind or another.  This is nothing more than one of them.  I may like it better than some others, but it isn't any fancier.  Other hybrid seed potatoes would cost about the same as the ones for this variety do.

I can only assume that McCart doesn't cook.  She doesn't shop the Greenmarket.  She isn't familiar with ingredients.  So when she saw the Foul Witch menu call out the Upstate Abundance potato variety, she must have figured that it had to be special in a way that could drive that dish's price.  And she did some internet research and misunderstood what she found.

Of course, what does drive that dish's price is the paddlefish roe (caviar, of course, would have priced it out of Foul Witch's menu range).  But McCart, as an apparent non-cook, doesn't know that.  (I used smoked whitefish roe myself, as that's what I happened to have around.)

This is a good dish, BTW.  Although me, I'd order the testa.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Sneakeater