The Pete Wells Thread

[Orik]

I can assure you none of you rank among the serious drinkers at that bar. 

[Wilfrid]

Hoping to weigh in again here when I get over probably another COVID, maybe a random respiratory thing, not flu.

[Sneakeater]

Hope it's a random respiratory thing!

[small h]

1 hour ago, Orik said:

I can assure you none of you rank among the serious drinkers at that bar. 

I take great offense at this. Pistols at dawn.

[Orik]

 

[The Flon]

16 hours ago, sweatshorts said:

Really? I did it all the time and I often saw other people doing it too.

Indeed! And then I'd chase it with one of their absinthes 

[Wilfrid]

On 12/15/2022 at 10:43 AM, Steve R. said:

Sneak, I believe you're approaching it from the wrong angle.  Yes, there is a class base to the term "restaurants" -- there is a class base to everything in a society that is based on class.  My take is that, if you want to help minimize class in our society, I'd think that trying to obliterate the specific definitions of "acceptable" words might actually make that harder.  If anything, you should be championing the sharpening of distinctions.  If the title is "Restaurant Review", it should contain reviews of what we consider (yes, with a blurry line, not a bright shiny clear one) to be "restaurants", & not "everything food".  Advocate to change the title or restrict the content to the title's meaning, but don't go further down the road of blurring distinctions.  People are lax enough with language without us helping.

Can't do better than that.

[Wilfrid]

I think the impasse is this. I agree with Steve that a Restaurant Review column should be about restaurants. The Times column as currently constituted is structured like a Restaurant Review column, not just because of the stars but because it explicitly attends to ambience, noise level, drinks and wine, reservations, etc, etc.

As I understand it, Sneak is testing the merits of scrapping the Restaurant Review column in favor of a column in which the critic can talk about everything from hot dog carts and deli steam tables to Le Bernardin. You can call the column what you like (although I would suggest not Restaurant Review), but the approach doesn't particularly appeal to me. 

[Sneakeater]

Note that The Times has already made the change I'm advocating.

[Wilfrid]

Note that I tend to moan about it.

[Wilfrid]

What would be welcome in my personal universe would be a feature comparing a few of the best lechoneras in the city. It would help me understand why this one is special (in terms of the food rather than the salsa music and the owner’s way with a chopper).

[voyager]

1 hour ago, Wilfrid said:

What would be welcome in my personal universe would be a feature comparing a few of the best xxxxxx in the city. It would help me understand why this one is special (in terms of the food rather than the xxxx music and the owner’s way with a xxxx).

Seems reasonable.   But it would depend on the reviewer(s).     One size fits few.

 

 

 

[Wilfrid]

I agree. I don’t know enough about Pete’s background with lechoneras, Latino food trucks, tripitas, buche and lengua to know if  I trust him on that.

None of this, I think, is as simple as throwing the world of food into the inbox of the current NYT critic.

[Sneakeater]

Don't passages like this give you some comfort?

Quote

Not everyone is there for the lechón. There are those who never stray from the pulpo, that classic Caribbean salad of cold octopus with bell peppers, raw onions and green olives. The octopus at La Piraña is very soft but not spongy. The peppers are sweet and juicy. It is not a spicy salad, but if you say yes when Mr. Jimenez offers to dress it “my way,” he will cover it with hot sauce and mojo de ajo — the garlic sauce that is also known as mojito, although I met one customer who calls it simply “God juice.” I have been eating pulpo happily for many years but I always underestimated it, I think, until the day I ate a batch Mr. Jimenez had seasoned his way.

Quote

In recent years, some longtime Nuyorican restaurants in the Bronx and other boroughs have been taken over by owners who aren’t of Puerto Rican descent. Others have simply closed. Memories are fading. Flavors that once sang out have become muted. Mr. Jimenez’s food, though, still tastes like something you might encounter on the island. Some of his fans will tell you that, in fact, he cooks in an older style that is not so easy to find these days even in Puerto Rico itself.

Quote

Some weekends he also makes bacalaítos, flat salt-cod fritters with flecks of green herbs. They are as good as any I have ever bought from the kiosks along the beach road in Piñones, which is to Puerto Rican fritters what Highway 61 is to the blues.

Quote

Some weekends he also makes bacalaítos, flat salt-cod fritters with flecks of green herbs. They are as good as any I have ever bought from the kiosks along the beach road in Piñones, which is to Puerto Rican fritters what Highway 61 is to the blues.

Quote

Very respectable lechón asado can be found in San Juan, but many people there will tell you that if you leave the city and go into the hills and mountains you can find lechón that is worth planning a weekend around. At clusters of outdoor restaurants in Trujillo Alto, in Naranjito, and above all in Guavate, entire pigs are slowly roasted on spits over wood or charcoal until they are tender enough to hack up with a machete. Lunch can easily become an all-day party, with salsa playing, people dancing and empty bottles of Medalla Light stacking up on the picnic tables.

True, a lechonera in Guavate would give you an assortment of meat from around the animal, while the pork Mr. Jimenez gives you tends to come from just one cut. (His propane-fueled outdoor oven is too small to roast whole hogs.) But the yielding meat, the dripping fat and the hard-candy crackle on the skin are the same. So are the aromas of oregano and pepper.[/quote]

It seems like Wells almost went out of his way to establish his knowledge base here.

 

 

[Sneakeater]

I'd also like to make clear that when I take issue of your exclusion of delicatessens from the review ambit, I'm not talking about "deli steam tables".  I'm not sure I even know what a "deli steam table" is.

It wouldn't offend me at all, though, if The Times had reviewed B&B, say, back in its glory days.