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After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

nytimes.com

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Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#151

Post by joenot443 »

Johnsorc wrote: post #145
treme wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

running multiple restaurants in NYC must be quite an adventure. are you still in the business? what brought you to hn?

It was an amazing experience, it made me who I am. I cooked through university, and then studied wine to become a sommelier after graduation. After a few years in a Relais and Chateau hotel in Colorado I moved to NYC for 10 years. I’ve since moved on to marketing in SaaS. I firmly believe that it gave me a big leg up in understanding consumer behavior and a unique ability to empathize with the end user. It was defini…

Super cool path, man. I'm envious in many ways.

Any favorite restaurants in NYC which folks on HN may not have heard of?

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#152

Post by ghaff »

lobsterthief wrote: post #149
ghaff wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's generic vegetable oil as opposed to Canola oil or Peanut oil? I'd actually suspect that a mindset of buy whatever oil is cheapest from Sysco would pursue cheapness in other areas as well including kitchen supervision/skills.

I wouldn’t suspect that at all—some recipes (like certain kinds of “street food” from different countries actually call for the use of cheaper oils :)

I doubt it makes any appreciable difference anyway most of the time although Canola oil and Peanut oil do have a slightly higher smoke point than vegetable oil.

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#153

Post by ghaff »

imp0cat wrote: post #129
analog31 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since my mom moved to town, we've been eating at her place frequently. She uses a lot of recipes from the NY Times. They are heavy . Lots of butter, cheese, coconut milk, etc. We've asked my mom to cut those things in half. She's a very good cook, and the things she improvises or makes from memory are much lighter fare. I learned to cook from her, so my meals tend to be fairly light too. Sure, the fat and salt (and d…

Halving is a neat trick. In my experience you can usually safely halve the amount of sugar in most cake recipes and still get a great cake that is sweet enough.

It can't do it with everything but sugar is probably the thing I'm most inclined to go "Nah, that's too much" in recipes. (Often, online, I'll see what people say in the comments too.)

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#154

Post by ghaff »

fuzztester wrote: post #111
UIUC_06 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own impression from a week in Paris is that you're right: if you get the "menu" at most restaurants (appetizer, entree, dessert), you walk out full but not stuffed. The weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, supposedly make you feel like that. I haven't taken them myself. It's like you don't really want any more. Americans seem to feel entitled to two meals for the price of one, and they may or may not eat them both in t…

>Americans seem to feel entitled to two meals for the price of one, and they may or may not eat them both in the restaurant. (If they don't finish, they take the rest home with them) yes, when my parents used to go to the US, a few decades ago, they told us kids about this practice called using doggie bags. apparently people used to ask for the uneaten part of their restaurant orders to be packed in what was called a…

I don't think the term is all that common today in the US. But, counter my pervious comment (though I hadn't been active that day and it was quite hot), a few of us were having dinner and most of us took something home (for us, not a dog)--and I just had a starter! Considered quite normal. Good food but there was just a lot of it and I didn't have much of an appetite.

I do know a few places that are sort of known for having portion sizes that are oriented towards people taking leftovers home.

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#155

Post by maxverse »

Johnsorc wrote: post #146
kataklasm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'd love to hear some stories!

There are plenty, but my favorite celebrity encounter had to be this one. Dan and Eugene Levy dining with Paul Shaffer, they were the last ones in the restaurant, and paid with a gift card signed “Love Dave.” It was mid winter, in Gramercy and they thoroughly enjoyed their evening, including wine. While I was fetching their coats, they were singing show tunes outside of the coat check (restaurant management isn’t alw…

This is beautifully written

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#156

Post by ghaff »

vander_elst wrote: post #122

If everyone in the business knows your face isn't the review going to be skewed? Shouldn't the reviewers strive for anonymity?

The top ones often do. But it isn't necessarily very effective at a top restaurant or even a popular local one.

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#157

Post by ghaff »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #117
laweijfmvo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the food isn’t terrible, it’s just gimmicky. and 90% of the people going to Guy Fieri’s _want_ a trash can full of nachos.

Eh, I think it's like media reviews. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and a lot of times what professional critics think has nothing in common with what the average person actually wants. The high end restaurant world is much like the professional art world in that it gets really pretentious and out of touch. It just is what it is.

I mostly don't go out of my way to eat at top restaurants (as opposed to good ones that are more midrange). Don't get me wrong; I've had some really good meals. But I think I'd find it all a bit exhausting as a regular routine.

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#158

Post by alvarlagerlof »

analog31 wrote: post #92
xanderlewis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She uses a lot of recipes from the NY Times. They are heavy. There’s a good chocolate chip cookie recipe from the NYT that I’ve used several times. Not only is it heavy, I’ve had to halve the ingredients and even then it still produces enough to satiate the Cookie Monster for probably at least a month. As a Brit, I also had to convert all of the measurements (patent absurdities like ‘cups of butter’, ‘tablespoons o…

Some of the measurements are aided by how the ingredients are packaged. For instance, butter is sold by the pound, in boxes of 4 "sticks" that are marked as being 1/4 cup each, which ignores the density variation but is familiar to every home cook. Chocolate comes in "squares" that are some predictable amount. In fact some recipes call for squares. "A pint's a pound the world around" is a workable rule of thumb for a…

What's a pound though? Not so global.

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#159

Post by Johnsorc »

maxverse wrote: post #155
Johnsorc wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty, but my favorite celebrity encounter had to be this one. Dan and Eugene Levy dining with Paul Shaffer, they were the last ones in the restaurant, and paid with a gift card signed “Love Dave.” It was mid winter, in Gramercy and they thoroughly enjoyed their evening, including wine. While I was fetching their coats, they were singing show tunes outside of the coat check (restaurant management isn’t alw…

This is beautifully written

Thank you! I've never fancied myself a good writer; I feel like, on a personal level, I can identify the beauty in things. However, I tend to have a hard time putting it to paper in a way that I feel conveys how I feel. But I'm working on it!

Re: After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table

#160

Post by Johnsorc »

joenot443 wrote: post #151
Johnsorc wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was an amazing experience, it made me who I am. I cooked through university, and then studied wine to become a sommelier after graduation. After a few years in a Relais and Chateau hotel in Colorado I moved to NYC for 10 years. I’ve since moved on to marketing in SaaS. I firmly believe that it gave me a big leg up in understanding consumer behavior and a unique ability to empathize with the end user. It was defini…

Super cool path, man. I'm envious in many ways. Any favorite restaurants in NYC which folks on HN may not have heard of?

Absolutely! Recommending restaurants may be the unofficial New Yorker pastime. As a best practice, I recommend checking some of the Eater.com lists before visiting any town. They don't always hit the mark, however you can get a pretty good feel for the restaurant scene by what they are reviewing. I'll put a mix of genres below. But I'm more than happy to answer any others.

Ugly Baby (Carrol Gardens) is my favorite Thai restaurant outside of Thailand. The Chef/Owner also has a restaurant in Sylva, NC for those in WNC.

Popina (Columbia Street Waterfront) is a cozy Italian spot, with a stellar wine list.

Claud (EV) is casual fine dining that serves all the good stuff. They're two old Momofuku vets that serve a lot of the stuff chefs like to eat.

Lilia and Misi (Williamsburg) are always excellent for pasta.

Lucali (Carrol Gardens) is the best pizza in the city. Razza (Jersey City) is the best pizza outside of a borough. Frank Pepe (New Haven) is the best outside the city.

Rossi Rosticceria Deli (Poughkeepsie) is an amazing deli, up by the CIA.

Glacken's Bar and Grill (Bronx) is absolutely the best bar to stop in before a Yankee game.

Minca (EV) for Tsukemen Ramen

Paisanos (Carrol Gardens) is my favorite Italian Butcher.

My favorite restaurant in NYC at the moment is Frenchette (Tribeca).

Bars in no particular order Dante (everything campari, get a Garibaldi), Attaboy (anything is great), Dead Rabbit(Irish Coffee is spectacular), Four Horsemen (natural wine).

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