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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

#161

Post by UIUC_06 »

rightbyte wrote: post #135
UIUC_06 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My air fryer makes decent fries, using only olive oil as a fat. It did take some practice to get it right. Are they as good as deep-fat fried? No, but they're crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. OK, you all want to hear this, you know you do: =============== Start preheating the air fryer to 400F. Slice the potatoes. Drop them in a bowl of water, swish them around and drain off the water, and fill the bowl…

For how long do you need to dry them? Are we talking hours here or like 15 minutes?

Good question. I just wipe them with paper towels and use immediately.

But longer might indeed be better. I can tell you they come out crispy and not soggy my way.

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

#162

Post by UIUC_06 »

joezydeco wrote: post #36
bsder wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You won't achieve wok hei on your stove Not true. Pull out that blowtorch. > your oven will not be ablr to achieve the high temperatures required for the best versions of certain foods Get a steel or aluminum plate for your oven. The conductivity can make up for a lot of the heat differential. Yeah, a true Neapolitan at 900F is out of reach, but almost everything else is just fine. > restaurants in your area will g…

Yeah, a true Neapolitan at 900F is out of reach... Go look for the folks that hack off the safety latch on their self-cleaning ovens. It's kind of nuts.

I've heard of them. I'd hate to have to explain that to my insurance inspector after a house fire, though.

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

#163

Post by mrbombastic »

pixl97 wrote: post #100
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #20

Couldn’t the negative effects of 4 rich meals a week be countered by eating healthier the rest of the time and having a consistent exercise routine?

Exercise burns far less calories than most people think, add a travel lifestyle to it and you'll never burn those calories.

"You can't outrun your fork" - I think a good thing for people to do when trying to get healthy is eat a donut and then run on the treadmill for the equivalent amount of calories you just ingested. Hammers home it is a lot easier to just not eat the donut.

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

#164

Post by joezydeco »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #162
joezydeco wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a true Neapolitan at 900F is out of reach... Go look for the folks that hack off the safety latch on their self-cleaning ovens. It's kind of nuts.

I've heard of them. I'd hate to have to explain that to my insurance inspector after a house fire, though.

Thankfully these miniature outdoor pizza ovens are taking some of the thrill away from the firestarters.

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

#165

Post by UIUC_06 »

Larrikin wrote: post #150
AlbertCory wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, you know, I think the brick oven pizza IS better. Yes, you probably could taste the difference. Whether the 5 min is dryer: maybe, could be. My decision to sell my Ooni, after about 6 tries, was because my actual results were nowhere close to a pizzeria's, and way more trouble than my kitchen oven's. Since you can't just open the door as you can with the kitchen oven, you have much less tolerance for error. I…

Which model did you own? I haven't bought one but had been considering buying an almost unitasker because the reviews from trusted sources seemed very good. Serious Eats in particular seems to love the brand.

I think it was the Koda, gas-powered.

It was a PITA. I don't miss it at all.

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

#166

Post by dredmorbius »

ghaff wrote: post #143
dredmorbius wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: truckers (largest single occupational category in many classifications), cabbies, trades workers, etc., etc. If you're in a captive market, whether that's airports, convention centres, motorway service areas, lunch wagon, lunchroom, etc., your choices are going to be limited. On business travellers vs. truckers, I'm finding ~ 3.5 million truckers in the US, who all but certainly eat on the road at least one mea…

Whatever the exact number, it's probably safe to say that directionally way more "meals out" are grabbing some variety of fast food than some variety of upscale/fine dining. Not all that fast-ish food is unhealthy/bad but a lot is as a steady diet. Which just reinforces the point that drawing a broad brush eating out will kill you doesn't have a lot of support. Eating at a nice restaurant once a month is almost certa…

I tend to agree on all points.

The truckers vs. business travellers comparison was mostly me just trying to suss out what the relative magnitudes of those were. Information's sketchy, but inferences can be drawn. That was independent of your points, which are valid and insightful.

And yeah, the idea that 1) most "restaurant" meals are fast-food franchises and 2) that's not especially healthy on a consistent basis, as well as that 3) specific choices about menu items can have a major impact are ... fairly self-evident. Pity the study doesn't seem to address those, at least based on the unembargoed bits at the shared link above.

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

#167

Post by dredmorbius »

dustincoates wrote: post #76
dredmorbius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that control at all for type of restaurant, both by market segment (e.g., fast food vs. sit-down fine dining), and by cuisine (e.g., "American" or "steakhouse" vs. various ethnic or vegetarian menus)? Because I could see a lot of variability amongst those. And without controls, the study will default strongly toward fast-food, doughnut shops, pizza, burger / franks stands, and the like. Several of which have pro…

> Several of which have pronounced associated negatives (see, e.g., Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me (2004). There may be associated negatives, but Super Size Me is a terrible piece of evidence of it. Spurlock not only intentionally ate far more than any normal person would, but also declined to mention in the movie his copious alcohol consumption. (Not that I expect someone…

TBH I was mentioning SSM more as an exemplar than as hard science, and there are plenty of other indicia (rigorous or anecdotal) which suggest a consistent fast-food diet is other than health-inducing. I'm not aware of Spurlock's alcohol consumption during the trial, and there is the fact that he reversed much of the damage at the time following his partner's dietary advice (she is a dietician AFAIR).

If you've any links or references to share I'd be interested.

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

#168

Post by [deleted] »

Johnsorc wrote: post #107

He had reviewed some of the restaurants that I previously opened/ran. He was generally a nice enough, but standoffish guy. I’ll never forget the feeling of realizing he was seated. One of those moments that you train for, and now it was game time . There are all sorts of tricks that people employ, cheat sheets with reviewers photos (there is one unfortunate photo of him that everyone has, it must be on every restaura…

[deleted]

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

#169

Post by solveit »

pbj1968 wrote: post #104
solveit wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What went wrong?

Complete indifference to food and water that led to fainting and probable heat stroke. Extreme nausea. All mitigated now with medication and forced hydration. Not fun.

Sorry to hear that. Thanks for sharing.

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

#170

Post by rcxdude »

jaggederest wrote: post #62
quirino wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you suggest a couple of channels? I've never played RuneScape but those videos sound right up my alley.

Not Runescape but a similar grindfest - playing the largest Factorio mod, Space Exploration. 300 hours plus in ~5 hours of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hRJ-CcwvrI&list=PLtyo3aqsNv...

There are definitely factorio mod(pack)s which are more of a timesink: seablock and pyanodon's spring to mind.
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