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Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

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Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#131

Post by miked85 »

OJFord wrote: post #68
kragen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there's significant dialectal variation on whether the "hamburger" is a sandwich, including the bread, or just the meat often used to form the filling of a sandwich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger In my usage, you can eat just a hamburger, but McDonalds won't sell you one; they'll insist on putting it between slices of bread, thus making a hamburger sandwich of it. If you want to eat just the hamb…

Ok, definitely a dialect thing. A burger (~ patty if you insist) in a bun is just a burger, I don't think anybody here (UK) would call that a sandwich.

I have never heard anyone in the US refer to just the patty as a hamburger. I have definitely never heard the term "hamburger sandwich" before.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#132

Post by ackbar03 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #89
tomcam wrote: post #3

Went to Paris and dined at a number of Michelin-starred places, including Le Cinq. The food was fine, but... I didn't get it! I think there is a culinary language that I understand as little as a typical Michelin-starred chef would be able to evaluate a tightly-written C program. On the other hand I was lucky enough to dine at Poppy Seattle every year of its existence and felt their completely original approach to th…

I've been to two Michelin-starred Sushi places in Japan. I thought they were both amazing, but I realised that my parents would not have thought so. They grew up relatively poor, and still have the habit of eating at home from a rotating menu of relatively straightforward recipes. Stews, soups, that kind of thing. They've gone to restaurants maybe a few dozen times in their lives , if that. I've been to so many Sushi…

Yes I do think upbringing does come into play, cause you subconsciously just don't care enough to distinguish the differences. Our family is decently well off but I was sort of raised like we were poor due to my parents upbringing. When I eat out I'm happier eating in hole-in-the-wall places cause I just feel better not "wasting" money on something more expensive. Sometimes I actually feel cheaper stuff really does taste better though since environment and marketing also does factor into the price tag, and cheaper places focus more on just making the damn stuff. Doesn't really help me much when I try to go on dates though Lol.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#133

Post by praptak »

jiggawatts wrote: post #89
tomcam wrote: post #3

Went to Paris and dined at a number of Michelin-starred places, including Le Cinq. The food was fine, but... I didn't get it! I think there is a culinary language that I understand as little as a typical Michelin-starred chef would be able to evaluate a tightly-written C program. On the other hand I was lucky enough to dine at Poppy Seattle every year of its existence and felt their completely original approach to th…

I've been to two Michelin-starred Sushi places in Japan. I thought they were both amazing, but I realised that my parents would not have thought so. They grew up relatively poor, and still have the habit of eating at home from a rotating menu of relatively straightforward recipes. Stews, soups, that kind of thing. They've gone to restaurants maybe a few dozen times in their lives , if that. I've been to so many Sushi…

It always makes me question whether it is good to have a well developed taste.

Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction from a meal or a drink.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#134

Post by praptak »

wolverine876 wrote: post #7
tomcam wrote: post #3

Went to Paris and dined at a number of Michelin-starred places, including Le Cinq. The food was fine, but... I didn't get it! I think there is a culinary language that I understand as little as a typical Michelin-starred chef would be able to evaluate a tightly-written C program. On the other hand I was lucky enough to dine at Poppy Seattle every year of its existence and felt their completely original approach to th…

In every domain - food, vpns, literature, etc. - I have more or less sophisticated taste (as does everyone). When I was young, I was skeptical of and even sometimes mocked the 'so-called experts' - possibly because (naturally, due to time) I'd developed sophistication in so little. I was very wise. But over time I found that when I develop sophistication in things, the 'so-called experts' suddenly become very smart a…

Paul Graham has an essay on taste[0]. It is about art but I think it translates well to taste in general.

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/goodart.html

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#135

Post by arp242 »

tayo42 wrote: post #62
blunte wrote: post #44

Michelin Star restaurants, in my 6 or 7 different experiences, are as much about the title as the food. Indeed the service is more formal, to the point of being a bit ridiculous in some cases. But the food itself was not so much more special than a really good unknown restaurant. It's really a bit silly, a status symbol that allows pomp and circumstance to satisfy people who need something "special" to talk about. I…

> have had food from street vendors and family restaurants that blew my mind Do you have some examples to share?

Not the previous poster, but probably the best meal I ever had was in Ísafjörður, a small fishing village in the north of Iceland. A wife-and-husband team does the cooking, their son is the server. It serves traditional Icelandic fish dishes in an unassuming old wooden hut (previously used to store manure, or so they told me) on long tables/benches. Everything about it looks about as unpretentious and plain as you can imagine, but it's amazing if you enjoy fish.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#136

Post by zarzavat »

kragen wrote: post #114
wenc wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to split hairs, but I believe there is a distinct difference between a burger and sandwich -- and it's not a dialectal one. A burger always has a patty (which isn't just meat, but a piece of flattened ground up meat) whereas a sandwich does not. The burger patty is what makes a burger a burger and not a sandwich. That's why you'll hear the term chicken sandwiches (because they don't contain patties), but you'll n…

It sounds like your concept of "sandwich" is ontologically incoherent. What kinds of generalizations apply to all or most sandwiches but not to a patty between slices of bread? We have "sandwiches don't contain patties", of course; but is there anything else? It sounds sort of like defining "Indian" to mean anyone from India who isn't from Goa, "British" to mean anyone from Great Britain who isn't from Cornwall, or "…

Since you mention India, would you consider curry to be a kind of soup? I believe the relationship is similar to that of burgers and sandwiches.

A curry is "just" a soup with spices. But if you walked into a restaurant and ordered "soup of the day" and got a vindaloo, you might feel deceived. If the waiter assured you that a vindaloo is ontologically a soup, I doubt that would be much consolation.

Sometimes in language, if you use a general term (A), when a more specific term exists (B subset A), then using that general term A carries the meaning A\B, because if you had meant B you would have said B instead.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#137

Post by Bayart »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #2

Very cool (Michelin Guide is a very opaque company), but there is one thing that caught my attention: >Hailing from Scotland where, as a child, he was regaled with some of the world’s best meats and produce Maybe they meant somewhere other than Scotland? Like, anywhere ? My mother was British, and she was an excellent cook. Of non-British dishes...

Scotland has some of the best beef in Europe.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#138

Post by jiggawatts »

praptak wrote: post #133
jiggawatts wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to two Michelin-starred Sushi places in Japan. I thought they were both amazing, but I realised that my parents would not have thought so. They grew up relatively poor, and still have the habit of eating at home from a rotating menu of relatively straightforward recipes. Stews, soups, that kind of thing. They've gone to restaurants maybe a few dozen times in their lives , if that. I've been to so many Sushi…

It always makes me question whether it is good to have a well developed taste. Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction from a meal or a drink.

> Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction

I have carefully avoided trying excessively high quality things because once I've experienced something truly luxury then it becomes an ongoing expense to keep up that level of experience. The irritating part is that before I was perfectly happy in my ignorance of something better being available out there, but aftewards I feel like I'm "ruined" because I'm constantly disappointed and frustrated if I can't keep up the level of quality.

I have had headphones ruined for me because I tried the Sennheiser HD 800 once and then there was no going back to cheap plastic cans.

I've had monitors ruined for me a long time ago because I got Dell PremierColor 4K display.

Food as per my previous post. I've had such great food in so many fantastic restaurants that I'm upset with mere "pub food" that used to make me perfectly happy before. I am now incapable of eating certain fast food unless literally starving to death.

Etc...

Thankfully, I'm still okay for wine. I believe it comes in two or is it three colours? Whatever, I'm still happy with a random $10 bottle. My boss for comparison now has to buy the $250 bottles at company dinners. Ouch.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#139

Post by omeze »

ayngg wrote: post #126
ToJans wrote: post #107

As a Belgian consultant I've spent a lot of time on business lunches and dinners, all over Europe. Big orgs always invited me in Michelin star restaurants. Smaller orgs usually invited me to emerging restaurants or well known local places. If you mostly care about discovering the second kind, I would strongly suggest you to ignore the stars and take a look at Michelin's "bib gourmand rating" [0]: these are restaurant…

I think the bib gourmand is the hidden star of the Michelin guide. It is just good food at a good price and it is much less known so you don't have to deal with the throngs that stars attract. It is more extensive too so there are always options.

+1 to this, if youre visiting paris just follow bib gourmand places and avoid the reservation anxiety. I had the best duck udon Ive ever tasted at Kisin

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#140

Post by arethuza »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #95
cameronh90 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scotland does have excellent meat and produce - the Aberdeen Angus and Scottish Salmon for example. The standard of food in the lowlands is generally poor - especially outside of Edinburgh. But there is a lot of absolutely cracking Scottish/British food in the Highlands. Of course, it's not as good for a foodie as somewhere like London, NYC or Tokyo. But it's a lot better than the kebabs, pizza crunches and munchie b…

> But it's a lot better than the kebabs, pizza crunches and munchie boxes that people associate with Scotland. If it's any consolation, the only food I associate with Scotland is haggis, and I don't expect that people there are actually eating it. I have no opinion whatever on what people in Scotland eat. (Except, of course, that it probably isn't haggis.)

"I don't expect that people there are actually eating it"

Well, I'm a Scot living in Scotland and I eat it fairly frequently - its a fairly standard food, though not as popular as things like curry, obviously.

NB I probably count as "posh" as I eat it with neeps and tatties, not deep fried with chips.

Edit: Scotland has some great food and also some dreadful food - fortunately its not too difficult to spot the difference.

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