BS: Great Restaurants, great food?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 02:58 PM

I don't always find that high priced restaurants have the best food, sorry to say. I have gone to some of the hot spots in Manhattan, but not always happy. Recently met some people from North Carolina in a famed Soho restaurant for brunch; where an omelet is $40.00 (which is about what I could afford there) and it was just...okay.I guess some people are happy, but it's more about ambience than food. Shame. There also is a French restaurant on the East Side some friends insist on as a meeting spot when we're all in the city, and even their coffee is second rate.

It seems to me, the overall quality of food in most restaurants has diminished in the last ten years or so, and I'm not sure why. I can still find some gems, but they're hard to discover. (There's a great an moderately priced Chinese Restaurant in the West Village, right across from Westbeth that's SUPERB. Went into a place last week which was 4x the price and not half as good.

For me, it's the food, not the ambience. Unless the ambience includes sitting at a table where Harrison Ford unexpectedly decides to dine. ;D

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 09:09 PM

Calgarians love to eat out, and as a result there are many good restaurants here. Not Michelin-starred, but good food, good service and unobtrusive ambiance. And all ethnic varieties.
A couple of hours at one of them drives dull care away, to use the cliche.
Our latest choice gave us Malpeque oysters on the half shell, and excellent soft shell crab a the entree.
And a cherry chocolate cream mousse.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:37 PM

When we were first married I had a very stressful job at which I literally lived. On my night off, we'd go to a place called The New Yorker which was maybe half an hour from where I worked/lived. It was expensive....at least to us it was...we'd spend $100.00 for dinner. Could we have made it ourselves? Probably and just as good with some practice but it wasn't just the food we went for, it was the peace and quiet, the calm, the atmosphere. So yes, for us, it was worth every single penny....every time.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 11:55 AM

Hey, who among us has a whole staff of sous chefs at our disposal to set up all the ingredients? Not to mention peeps to wash up!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:32 PM

I think the bottom line for me is that I'm just not creative enough to put together some of the food combinations that these inventive chefs do.I might be able to duplicate it - IF I had the recipe. I have a friend that works in a four star place making desserts. Really original creations. And I can still remember going to Key West on our honeymoon and having a banana-mango cobbler at Kelly McGillis's place in the old Pan Am building. Amazing.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:00 PM

Creativity enters into it. But I have to agree with Maryrrf, also having had an expense account for guests at one time. Some enjoyable, some not.
The best French restaurant I ever found was in the market town of Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico, and reasonable to boot.
A good continental chef operated a little restaurant in Black Diamond, Alberta, and we would drive down there (over an hour) just for a meal.
In New Orleans we ate several times at a hotel (name forgotten) where food was excellent, no wait, and service of a high standard, again not pricy. Much preferable to a couple of the big names. And for lunch some little gumbo places were excellent.
I never had a bad meal in Portugal. An excellent country for a food lover.

A few weeks ago for a birthday we ate at a restaurant in Calgary that was high on an international list, and were disappointed by both quality and service.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 06:59 PM

It's hit or miss. I had a job where I travelled and took clients out on an expense account, back in the 90's. I went to a lot of very expensive restaurants. Some were not that great, some were superb, but there were very few cases where if I had been spending my own money I'd have felt that it was worth it for the food alone. Part of what goes into fine dining is the experience itself - the setting, the service, the ambiance of the restaurant, etc. And I might add that I had some wonderful meals that weren't very expensive at all - Mexico stands out as a place where the food in very humble establishments was often delicious. Also I think there is a law of diminishing returns - when you get into the really silly priced restaurants, it gets to the point where you realize there's only so much they can do to food to make it taste good - the rest is hype. It also depends on what, to you, is delicious food. Some of the sauces used in upscale restaurants might be difficult to make, but if you enjoy cooking and experimenting I think you can do just as well at home. When you eat a lot at 'fine' restaurants believe it or not it gets old. When we went on a sales trip we were expected to wine and dine clients just about every evening, and sometimes for lunch too. After two or three days of this I didn't want to see another fine restaurant. I just wanted to have a grilled cheese sandwich or something simple, without all the fuss.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: frogprince
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 06:38 PM

We aren't rich, have never eaten at any of the legendary highest-end restaurants, seldom at places at all "toney". But we have dined just a couple of times at French restaurants, one in Saint Martin and one in N'awlins, way above what our usual budget allows. I would have to say that the food was superb. But the portions in the most expensive place, in New Orleans, were very ample - for a hummingbird.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 05:45 PM

"better" may simply mean more variety and interesting combinations than a small place can deal with.

There are many stories about people spending a lot in a famous restaurant and being very disappointed in both quality and style....but generally, money can get you some good eats.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 05:41 PM

A first-class restaurant many not cook any better than you do, but it generally has access to better grades of meat and produce than are available to us po' folk. And many first class chefs are, in two words, first class.

Subject: BS: Great Restaurants, great food?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 04:16 PM

I'm quite interested in food, and consider myself a reasonable cook.

I look at the reviews of really expensive restaurants in the weekend newspapers and wonder if I couldn't do as well.

Can anybody who has eaten in these places tell me that the food is much better? I'm not saying that it isn't, just curious to know.