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Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

luxeat.com

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Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#271

Post by dotancohen »

rsynnott wrote: post #257
dotancohen wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tested only with the headphones that I had at the time, with the types of music that I listen to. I'd actually be interested in trying again, but with my normal headphones (typical Sony over-ear), not something expensive. For reference, I listen to mostly Pantera, Beethoven, Pink Floyd, early Nine Inch Nails, Led Zep. It's not too diverse, but there is a short period from about 1990 to 2005 where music recorded in…

How old were the MP3 files you were using? Early mp3 encoders were generally Not Very Good.

They were brand new, ripped myself and compared with the CD still in the drawer. Using different bitrates and other settings, whatever was documented for the CLI tools at the time. I was using some Red Hat variant, but this was before Fedora. In 2002 I believe.

Though I'm sure that the encoders got better, really, the quality of the common rip has not.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#273

Post by rednerrus »

martijn_himself wrote: post #225

One thing that definitely resonates with me is his mention of sauces when he explains the differences between star ratings. Quite often when I visit a great restaurant I find its a sauce that lifts a dish from the good to memorable. I always thought that was because of the stock made from scratch. This is quite hard to replicate at home- store bought stock cubes add very little depth of flavour to a dish and making s…

If you live in a city, go find a specialty grocery store and ask them for stock and demi. They'll get you restaurant quality versions of both items.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#274

Post by Semaphor »

rdeboo wrote: post #204
Semaphor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A 3-star restaurant is going to have attentive, almost (but not quite) intrusive service. The servers come across more as dining consultants or even storytellers. I had that experience in a 0-star chain steakhouse. It was the Football World Championship in Germany, and Germany was playing. I don’t care for that at all (nor did any of the people working that day), they were one of the few restaurants without a TV. I…

I've had this experience in Germany and it turned out that the waitress gets a cut of the turnover, at least for drinks. So they have an incentive to keep the glasses full. I'm not sure if this is common in Germany.

I know a few people in hospitality, haven’t heard of that. But this was 5 people working just to serve me ;)

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#275

Post by rsynnott »

dotancohen wrote: post #271
rsynnott wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old were the MP3 files you were using? Early mp3 encoders were generally Not Very Good.

They were brand new, ripped myself and compared with the CD still in the drawer. Using different bitrates and other settings, whatever was documented for the CLI tools at the time. I was using some Red Hat variant, but this was before Fedora. In 2002 I believe. Though I'm sure that the encoders got better, really, the quality of the common rip has not.

Yeah, the out-of-box encoders included with Linux distros in 2002 would likely not have been great. If you were lucky you might have gotten an early version of LAME. If you do the experiment again, it may be worth using either the likes of Spotify/Apple Music (okay, strictly speaking neither are mp3, but same general idea, and they'll put effort into encoding properly), or using a decent modern encoder (LAME, the Apple one, etc).

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#276

Post by diffeomorphism »

phonypc wrote: post #73
moehm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liking the food != the food is good. Good taste is not so subjective as you think it is. Your personal preferences, yeah, I don't care about them. But every professional taster keep their personal preferences out of the game and look for more objective criterias, like complexity, balance, off-flavors, aftertaste, typicity, presentation etc. For example if I order chicken and it does not taste like chicken, it's flawe…

> objective criterias, like complexity, balance, off-flavors, aftertaste, presentation Those... simply aren't objective criteria. One persons off-flavor is another persons desired flavor (cilantro/coriander for an obvious example). What is the quantitative measure of "complexity" or "balance" in a dish?

That is confusing off with undesired. In other words "would it still taste like this if the chef had spent more time/effort/money".

Cilantro tasting like cilantro -> great. Cilantro tasting like it is old/thawed/burnt -> not great.

Taste being "off" is about unintentional deviation.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#277

Post by jhgb »

Cederfjard wrote: post #272
jhgb wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Czech.

Thanks. So do every white collar worker log and get paid by the hour? Government officials, etc?

Around here, the major distinction is not between salary and wage, but rather between "mzda" (private sector remuneration) and "plat" (public sector remuneration). "Mzda" as far as I'm aware is strictly hourly. Perhaps the closest thing that comes to a salary in the private sector is a certain kind of arrangement called roughly "accounted working time" that ensures that even if your actual working hours fall below a minimum of something like 80% of your notional working hours, your pay will be capped from below at this rate relative to your long term average income. Or something like that. The whole regulation is quite complicated for a layman, me included. As far as "plat" is concerned, well, Wikipedia directs me to "salary" from the Czech page for "plat", whereas it directs me to "wage" from the Czech page for "mzda", so perhaps public sector remuneration might qualify as salary, with a number of qualifications (such as that the remuneration is never negotiated but dictated by government tables, that overtime pay is still a thing, etc.) The base component of "plat" is monthly, so perhaps similar to salary, except it's being adjusted in ways that make it difficult for me to tell whether the whole result is salary or not (think overtime adjustments, night work adjustments, personal performance adjustments, etc., most of which require working hour logging anyway).

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#278

Post by OJFord »

kragen wrote: post #195
zenon wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sandwich-...

According to this graphic, all 9 groups would consider a McDonalds cheeseburger to be a sandwich, even the "hardline traditionalists": "A sandwich must have a classic sandwich shape: two pieces of bread/baked product, with toppings in between; must have classic sandwich toppings: meat, cheese, lettuce, condiments, etc." Clearly there's an entire missing dimension to the graphic, because it totally denies the existenc…

I don't think I'm saying anything contrary or unusual for UK. The top left three (structure and ingredients pure/neutral, but not both neutral /hotdog) as pictured I would consider sandwiches.

But I think temperature is a better indicator than ingredients: 'a sandwich' is not cooked (it's ingredients might be, like meat obviously, but then cooled) or hot.

Of course you can have a 'toasted sandwich', but the qualifier's important, it's basically a different thing that happens to share a word - if you ordered a 'cheese sandwich' and it came out toasted you'd be surprised.

Which makes a hotdog trivially not a sandwich, but you could slice up some sausages the next day and have them between slices of buttered bread for a 'sausage sandwich' (which likewise is not a term anyone would use for a hotdog!)

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#279

Post by Cederfjard »

jhgb wrote: post #277
Cederfjard wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. So do every white collar worker log and get paid by the hour? Government officials, etc?

Around here, the major distinction is not between salary and wage, but rather between "mzda" (private sector remuneration) and "plat" (public sector remuneration). "Mzda" as far as I'm aware is strictly hourly. Perhaps the closest thing that comes to a salary in the private sector is a certain kind of arrangement called roughly "accounted working time" that ensures that even if your actual working hours fall below a…

Very interesting, thanks. I have personal experience in Sweden and the UK, where salaries are the norm for white collar work. My understanding from speaking to people from other parts of Northern and Western Europe, Southern Africa, and South and East Asia is that it’s common there as well. It’s definitely not a US only phenomenon.

Re: Confessions of a Michelin Star Inspector

#280

Post by gremloni »

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…

Haute western food is all about gimmicky ingredients, presentation and “letting the food speak for itself”. I think this is nonsensical considering the tremendous range of flavor and delicious cuisine that Asia and the Mediterranean regions offer with the correct application of spices and flavor compliments. Food really is all about taste.
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