This NG is nearly dead
Yip Yap
forums for discussion? Or is because
Google News bites so hard?
-- Yip
Steve Pope
Steve
ll
> Is this because people are using other forums for discussion?
Good question. Let's resolve to post some more restaurant
reviews and other food news.. I sure do wish there were more
east bay related posts.
carmenl...@yahoo.com
I want Peninsular postings myself.
Say, has anybody been to Erawan, no not the Berkeley foodstore, the new
Thai place in Redwood City, only steps from Bangkok Bay. Giving ole
Bangkok a run for its money I'd say.
Next door to Naranjo's taqueria, in what used to be an Italian joint
with a name like "Romanticos" or something.
Anyway, TRY IT AND POST ABOUT IT. Erawan. Thai. Redwood City.
Jo Ann Malina
I don't eat out much any more, being on fixed income in exceedingly
expensive area of Peninsula. I find the restaurants being reviewed
in the paper and some of the ones mentioned in the group grotesquely
high priced. I expect others are in similar circumstances.
Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
broken into a trot.
--
Jo Ann Malina, make spamthis best to find my address
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. -- Thoreau
notbob
> Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
> weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
> does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
> broken into a trot.
The govt specs on inflation are totally bogus. We've all seen butter,
bacon, housing, automobiles, etc, go thru the freakin' roof while the
govt continues to maintain inflation is sub-1% per year. Yeah, right!
Anything the govt sayz about inflation is absolute bullshit. Having
said that, my advice is you buy nothing unless it's 50% off. This
sounds a little optimistic, but the fact is all the major chains (Alb,
Rly, Sfwy, etc) eventually put almost everything on sale for 50% off,
eventually. Save you money, watch the weekly ads, and buy
accordingly.
nb
Jon Nadelberg
> Yip Yap <y...@no.spam> is alleged to have said:
>
>>Is this because people are using other
>>forums for discussion? Or is because
>>Google News bites so hard?
>
>
>
> weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
> does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
> broken into a trot.
>
Might be because of the rising oil prices.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
<carmenl...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Say, has anybody been to Erawan, no not the Berkeley foodstore, the new
>Thai place in Redwood City, only steps from Bangkok Bay. Giving ole
>Bangkok a run for its money I'd say.
>
>Next door to Naranjo's taqueria, in what used to be an Italian joint
>with a name like "Romanticos" or something.
>
>Anyway, TRY IT AND POST ABOUT IT. Erawan. Thai. Redwood City.
Why didn't you try it? If you did, why aren't you posting a review?
I looked at it a couple of weeks ago, but I decided to stick with the
tried'n'true Bangkok Bay. Because my primary is diabetic, I don't get to
eat Thai food as often as I used to.
--
--- Aahz <*> (Copyright 2005 by aa...@pobox.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het Pythonista
Why is this newsgroup different from all other newsgroups?
Tim May
Jo Ann Malina <jma...@spamthis.com> wrote:
> Yip Yap <y...@no.spam> is alleged to have said:
> > Is this because people are using other
> > forums for discussion? Or is because
> > Google News bites so hard?
>
> I don't eat out much any more, being on fixed income in exceedingly
> expensive area of Peninsula. I find the restaurants being reviewed
> in the paper and some of the ones mentioned in the group grotesquely
> high priced. I expect others are in similar circumstances.
>
> Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
> weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
> does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
> broken into a trot.
"Inflation" (= devaluation of the dollar relative to either past value
or to other currencies, gold, etc.) is grossly underrepresented in the
official figures.
Legal services, medical services, etc. have risen dramatically in the
past 10 years, but are not counted in official inflation figures. The
inflation estimates (there are several...some more common than others)
usually use a "market basket" of goods, but rarely take into account
rising tax rates, hospital and insurance rates, and other fees and
services which have to be paid by those who are shaken-down by shysters
and their ilk.
I agree that many of the restaurant reviews here are of places with
exorbitant prices. I figure this is for a couple of reasons:
1. These are "special places" that the reviewer has gone to,
representing some major occasion, such as an anniversary, a promotion,
relatives visiting from far away, etc. A review is more likely just on
this basis alone.
2. Impressing others. If someone drops $300 for two at some fancy
restaurant, he usually wants to write about it.
3. Embarassment at being a tightwad. I'll bet many people here eat at
cheap places, including Jack in the Box, Mr. Chau's, etc., but many of
them won't admit it. Writing a review of an inexpensive place is
admitting that one goes to such places, which is declasse.
Me, I have no problem saying I like Mr. Chau's. Or the Golden Wok, on
El Camino Real near Mathilda, a block away from the overpriced
Pointless Fucking Chang's yuppie place. Golden Wok makes some of the
best chicken-fried noodles I've ever had (this is served with 1, 2, or
3 main items, but the noodles are delicious by themselves). And this is
all for about $5.
--Tim May
Tim May
<ne...@nadelberg.com> wrote:
Priced in adjusted dollars, neither oil prices nor refined gasoline
prices have reached 1981 levels. (That number is reached when "regular"
reaches $3.10 a gallon, in today's dollars. If delayed, that crossover
point may be higher, as more inflation occurs.)
--Tim May
Al Eisner
I doubt if Safeway's prices have much to do with inflation -- the proof
is in exactly what you say, that most of (at least the shelf items) are
sometimes sold at steep "discounts" (read, "uninflated prices"). I
agree with your strategy, although the discounts on some products I
like have become rather infrequent. But if you buy something like
cereal, for example, typically about 1/4 of the offerings at Safeway
are discounted at any given time. Safeway's normal shelf-item prices
are essentially the same as Draeger's.
I would add to the above a suggestion to try places like Target -- for
those staples that they carry, their standard prices can be well below
those at the supermarkets (and without having to buy the ridiculous
quantities that seem to be the only option at Costco).
--
Al Eisner
San Mateo Co., CA
Danny Low
That is because nothing controversial has been posted lately. Maybe
Tim May can help out. We have done best hamburgers and best hot dogs
and best pizzas before. Tipping is a perennial favorite but we
recently did something on that. Or we can discuss how many different
combination of fusion restaurants we have in the bay area and which
ones makes sense. :-)
Danny
Don't question authority. What makes you think they
know anything? (Remove the first dot for a valid e-mail
address)
Danny Low
OK. Monteros Cafe Taqueria on Solano Ave on the first block off San
Pablo. Really good food but very slow service. Has roast leg of lamb
which is unusual but it is my favorite dish there. The place is small
but they do not seem to get much business on weekends so that is a
good time to go there. I live in the south bay but I am willing to
drive up to eat there.
ll
> the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb weekly.
Safeway's Anal Accountants do seem to be the most adept
of all the chains at maximizing the profits.
Our local Target recently remodeled and now has some
grocery-type items. Example, Cracklin' Oat Bran.
Safeway and Ralph's are usually $6 per box. Target is
usually three boxes for $7.
Soy milk: Safeway $4.29 per, Costco three pack for $6.59.
We also buy organic milk at Costco, three pack works out
to half the price at Safeway.
axlq
Nobody forces you to use Google for usenet. Yes, it bites. Perhaps
a real newsreader might be in order?
Activity comes and goes. Anything that stirs up controversy results
in more conversation. I myself haven't eaten at any new, noteworthy
places lately, so I don't have much to write about.
Rec.food.cooking is an alternative, but I actually like this group
better because it gives me occasional new ideas for where to eat, or
not to eat, around the area in which I live. This is the only forum
I know of that's about the local cuisine.
-A
Steve Pope
> This is the only forum I know of that's about the local cuisine.
There are others. Craigslist "food" discussion forum is
one, (looks like 50 thread started by SF Bay users in the
past 24 hours) but there's usually better content here.
Steve
Dan Abel
<lksl...@REMOVEcomcastTHIS.net> wrote:
> I sure do wish there were more
> east bay related posts.
Because there's no there there.
--
Dan Abel
Sonoma State University
AIS
da...@sonic.net
Steve Pope
>Anything the govt sayz about inflation is absolute bullshit.
Yep. They include neither food nor energy costs in the consumer
price index, on the theory these costs are too "volatile"
and would "distort" the index.
S.
axlq
I meant "this is the only *usenet* forum..."
Yes, there are loads of web forums out there. I don't use them. My
time is limited, and using the trn newsreader on a linux server I
can go through messages on all the usenet forums that interest me
every day much more efficiently than I could go through the same
number of web forums.
If I had to use google to read usenet, I'd probably feel differently
about those web forums, though.
-A
Mark Lipton
> In article <426C632C...@REMOVEcomcastTHIS.net>, ll
> <lksl...@REMOVEcomcastTHIS.net> wrote:
>
>
>> I sure do wish there were more
>>east bay related posts.
>
>
> Because there's no there there.
>
There's no where where? :P I've often said the same thing about
Gerturde Stein's writings...
Mark Lipton
Mark Lipton
> In article <d4jeri$8th$1...@blue.rahul.net>,
> Steve Pope <spo...@speedymail.org> wrote:
>
>><ax...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>This is the only forum I know of that's about the local cuisine.
>>
>>There are others. Craigslist "food" discussion forum is
>>one, (looks like 50 thread started by SF Bay users in the
>>past 24 hours) but there's usually better content here.
>
>
> I meant "this is the only *usenet* forum..."
*cough* ne.food???
Mark Lipton
Alison Chaiken
Jo Ann Malina <jma...@spamthis.com> writes:
> I find the restaurants being reviewed in the paper and some of the
> ones mentioned in the group grotesquely high priced.
Me too. I skip past reviews of places like Manresa since I have no
interest in eating in restaurants with dress codes where dinner takes
two hours. (OTOH I might visit some of the places Tony Lima mentioned
in Eureka.) There seems to be a preoccupation with novelty for its
own sake at some of these restaurants, where we must not only use
highest quality ingredients with excellent preparation, but we must
create unlikely combinations in order to gratify the ego of the
celebrity chef. I'd rather find a better hot-and-sour soup or try a
new Nepalese restaurant than sample crab-stuffed troutcakes with
raspberry aioli or whatever.
> That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. -- Thoreau
Easy for Thoreau to say as he always got Emerson to pay.
--
Alison Chaiken "From:" address above is valid.
(650) 236-2231 [daytime] http://www.wsrcc.com/alison/
"You can't fall down when you're kneeling." -- church sign in
Brownwood, TX via Paige M.
Todd Michel McComb
Alison Chaiken <alison+gnus20...@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com> wrote:
>There seems to be a preoccupation with novelty for its own sake
>at some of these restaurants, where we must not only use highest
>quality ingredients with excellent preparation, but we must create
>unlikely combinations in order to gratify the ego of the celebrity
>chef.
Novelty is something we seek at high-end places. Not novelty,
technically, but rather new ideas. That can come in a lot of areas,
but yeah, I wouldn't go out to an expensive place if I was expecting
all dishes I'd eaten before, even if they're ones I like. For
familiar dishes, I have complete confidence that we can make them
more to our taste than any stranger can.
These exact comments pretty much apply to my musical interests.
Alison Chaiken
mcc...@medieval.org (Todd Michel McComb) writes:
> Novelty is something we seek at high-end places. Not novelty,
> technically, but rather new ideas.
What is the distinction? When are portabella-stuffed prosciutto rolls
served with deep-fried arugula chips a "new idea" and when are they
simply an affectation? To me hot-and-sour soup with croutons made
from rice would be worth trying because I enjoy hot-and-sour soup and
croutons if suitably flavored would be novel but plausible in it. On
the other hand, hot-and-sour soup with strawberries and croutons made
from blue corn would just be odd. A lot of these menus sound simply
perverse to me.
Ten or fifteen years ago there was a best-selling book out called
something like _The Best of Everything_ that contained lists of the
absolutely most superior object or experience of any kind, at least
according to the authors. The popularity of the book appeared to be
due to a widespread belief that if the reader is going to purchase an
object or go on a trip, he/she must purchase the absolute best object
and go only to the ultimate desinations. This is the logic by which
many people go over and over to Yosemite without visiting other Sierra
destinations, as Yosemite is the best! Likewise we must eat
$100/plate dinners, as we know they are superior and we want to have
only peak experiences. Note Todd that I am not accusing you of this
attitude, but I see it a lot.
> That can come in a lot of areas, but yeah, I wouldn't go out to an
> expensive place if I was expecting all dishes I'd eaten before, even
> if they're ones I like.
I can't see going to expensive restaurants unless they offer
hard-to-find ingredients (like exceptional quality steaks) or
difficult-to-reproduce cooking techniques (like pizza or tandoori).
As it happens pizza and tandoori are cheap even though I'd willingly
pay more for them.
> For familiar dishes, I have complete confidence that we can make
> them more to our taste than any stranger can.
I agree although there are a lot of dishes I've had once or twice and
enjoyed that I have never gotten around to trying to reproduce at
home. In addition our local Asian restaurants offer more variety than
I ever will have the opportunity to sample.
> These exact comments pretty much apply to my musical interests.
Happily most fine music is cheap, just like most fine restaurants.
Todd Michel McComb
Alison Chaiken <alison+gnus20...@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com> wrote:
>What is the distinction? When are portabella-stuffed prosciutto
>rolls served with deep-fried arugula chips a "new idea" and when
>are they simply an affectation?
If the combination is more than the sum of its parts, it's a real
new idea. I'd say that novelty is as you characterized it, for the
sake of itself only, whereas new ideas contain seeds of broader
ideas and directions. When e.g. Ferran Adria made pea soup that
was part hot and part cold, many food people considered that an
important new direction. Conveniently, one can re-create such a
thing rather cheaply.
>A lot of these menus sound simply perverse to me.
What does or doesn't work can be hard to appraise in advance
sometimes, although I have to say that e.g. the stuff Olive Garden
touts on TV sounds simply perverse to me. Their food even _looks_
disgusting, so I don't understand them at all, but I digress.
>This is the logic by which many people go over and over to Yosemite
>without visiting other Sierra destinations, as Yosemite is the best!
Isn't this the logic of people who eat only foods they know they
like, instead of seeking out new experiences? I like a nice mix
of the two.
>I can't see going to expensive restaurants unless they offer
>hard-to-find ingredients (like exceptional quality steaks) or
>difficult-to-reproduce cooking techniques (like pizza or tandoori).
>As it happens pizza and tandoori are cheap even though I'd willingly
>pay more for them.
Yes, as it happens, many of the restaurants which offer inconvenient
techniques for the home (which is one of the 3 major reasons I noted
a few weeks ago for my dining out) are usually fairly reasonably
priced.
>I agree although there are a lot of dishes I've had once or twice
>and enjoyed that I have never gotten around to trying to reproduce
>at home.
We try a lot of new things at home.
>In addition our local Asian restaurants offer more variety than I
>ever will have the opportunity to sample.
My wife is pretty familiar with most of the stuff at the Asian
restaurants, and I've been to a lot of family banquets.
Tak Nakamoto
"Jo Ann Malina" <jma...@spamthis.com> wrote
> Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
> weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
> does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
> broken into a trot.
There's been a sea change in the supermarket/grocery market. Until a few
years ago supermarkets like Safeway's, Albertson's and even Andronico's Park
and Shop (Berkeley) positioned themselves to compete for the full range of
customers. That is, they tried to serve people with a wide range of incomes.
My feeling is that due to the competition from "big box" stores like CostCo,
Walmart or even Pak'n Save (Safeway) that the traditional supermarkets are
no longer trying to serve all markets. They no longer care for people with
more modest means assuming that they will shop in bulk elsewhere at prices
that the supermarkets don't want to match. The local supermarkets now try to
make their profit on premium and specialty items: the deli; wine and
liquor; cheeses; etc. Their prices aren't competitive for staples.
The prices at Andronico's are so expensive that it is cheaper for me to buy
milk, flour, generic canned goods and the like at my corner liquor store
than at the supermarket. Even onions, carrots, celery, cilantro and some
other fresh goods are cheaper at the corner store than at Andronico's. (Of
course in Berkeley, veggies are much cheaper and better at Monterey Market
than anywhere else.) Beer is also cheaper at the corner store, though the
selection is much more limited.
Not long ago, many people were complaining that inner city residents were
suffering from the lack of standard supermarkets like Safeway's in their
neighborhood. It was said that the corner liquor stores were selling
groceries at exorbitant prices to people with limited choices. I think that
the situation has changed radically. Supermarkets no longer compete on
price.
Tak Nakamoto
Tim May
SlashDot for food:
FoodD00d: Like, anyone know a place for tacoss?"
Tyz...@gmail.com: "Dude, like what kind. Fish or?
FoodD00d: "Good ones, that kind. Where?"
ElectricPrune: "Peppy's, in BDSJ."
Tyz...@gmail.com: "Huh??"
FoodD00d: "Like, how close is that to Bezerkeley?"
(75 other articles on SlashDot for Food that are below your level of
relevance. Click HERE to see them.)
Todd Michel McComb
Tak Nakamoto <jfa...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>My feeling is that due to the competition from "big box" stores
>like CostCo, Walmart or even Pak'n Save (Safeway) that the traditional
>supermarkets are no longer trying to serve all markets. They no
>longer care for people with more modest means assuming that they
>will shop in bulk elsewhere at prices that the supermarkets don't
>want to match.
I don't think that people with modest means are, in general, known
for either their forethought or their ability to pay extra upfront
to save later.
Getting decent prices on grocery items is just getting tougher,
pretty much. Luckily the Asian markets around here provide one
more outlet.
I also agree with the inflation remarks made by others. We had a
period several years ago where we supposedly had inflation, but it
was all on junk that no one actually _needs_. Now we have food
prices shooting up, but we supposedly have no inflation. It's a
joke.
Serene
> (Of
> course in Berkeley, veggies are much cheaper and better at Monterey Market
> than anywhere else.)
Better than the Berkeley Bowl, my idea of mecca? If yes, I must go to
Monterey Market on a field trip.
serene
--
http://serenejournal.livejournal.com
http://www.jhuger.com
Tim May
<alison+gnus20...@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com> wrote:
> Ten or fifteen years ago there was a best-selling book out called
> something like _The Best of Everything_ that contained lists of the
> absolutely most superior object or experience of any kind, at least
> according to the authors. The popularity of the book appeared to be
> due to a widespread belief that if the reader is going to purchase an
> object or go on a trip, he/she must purchase the absolute best object
> and go only to the ultimate desinations.
I think the "Robb Report" is still on sale. It's a magazine devoted to
this "Best of Everything" approach...best sailboats, best fountain
pens, best bicycles, best laptops, best shoes, etc.
Flipping through it, I think another interpretation is "Best
advertisers."
--Tim May
Mark Lipton
> "Jo Ann Malina" <jma...@spamthis.com> wrote
>
> > Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
>
>>weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
>>does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
>>broken into a trot.
>
>
> There's been a sea change in the supermarket/grocery market. Until a few
> years ago supermarkets like Safeway's, Albertson's and even Andronico's Park
> and Shop (Berkeley) positioned themselves to compete for the full range of
> customers. That is, they tried to serve people with a wide range of incomes.
>
> My feeling is that due to the competition from "big box" stores like CostCo,
> Walmart or even Pak'n Save (Safeway) that the traditional supermarkets are
> no longer trying to serve all markets. They no longer care for people with
> more modest means assuming that they will shop in bulk elsewhere at prices
> that the supermarkets don't want to match. The local supermarkets now try to
> make their profit on premium and specialty items: the deli; wine and
> liquor; cheeses; etc. Their prices aren't competitive for staples.
That's a very cogent point. In addition, another trend comes into play:
cooking with fresh ingredients (produce, meat, fish) has declined
precipitously in the US over the last 30 years, but not evenly across
all income groups. Recent studies have shown that low income families
are far more likely to use prepared foods rather than cooking in the
more traditional sense. So, catering to higher income customers also
targets the people more likely to buy traditional groceries (not that
that excuses Andronicos and Whole Paycheck from overcharging, though).
>
> The prices at Andronico's are so expensive that it is cheaper for me to buy
> milk, flour, generic canned goods and the like at my corner liquor store
> than at the supermarket. Even onions, carrots, celery, cilantro and some
> other fresh goods are cheaper at the corner store than at Andronico's. (Of
> course in Berkeley, veggies are much cheaper and better at Monterey Market
> than anywhere else.) Beer is also cheaper at the corner store, though the
> selection is much more limited.
Andronico's is simply catering to their demographic, at least in
Berkeley. You checked housing prices near their Solano or Shattuck
stores? It's not like there are a lot of lower middle class families
nearby. So, they charge more and offer faster checkout lines and better
crowd management than Monterey Market. They also offer "one stop"
grocery shopping, as opposed to the Monterey Market-Magnani-cheese
shop-fish market hopscotch, braving time-stressed shoppers at each step
of the journey. Caveat emptor.
>
> Not long ago, many people were complaining that inner city residents were
> suffering from the lack of standard supermarkets like Safeway's in their
> neighborhood. It was said that the corner liquor stores were selling
> groceries at exorbitant prices to people with limited choices. I think that
> the situation has changed radically. Supermarkets no longer compete on
> price.
It would be interesting to see if inner city liquor stores have raised
their prices in accord with Safeway and Albertson's. I can't say that
I've done the study, though.
Mark Lipton
Mark Lipton
> Tak Nakamoto <jfa...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
>>(Of
>>course in Berkeley, veggies are much cheaper and better at Monterey Market
>>than anywhere else.)
>
>
> Better than the Berkeley Bowl, my idea of mecca? If yes, I must go to
> Monterey Market on a field trip.
Last time I checked, they were pretty comparable in price. Take that
with a grain of salt, though, as my data are from the previous millenium ;-)
Mark Lipton
Meg Worley
>SlashDot for food:
>
>FoodD00d: Like, anyone know a place for tacoss?"
>
>Tyz...@gmail.com: "Dude, like what kind. Fish or?
>
>FoodD00d: "Good ones, that kind. Where?"
>
>ElectricPrune: "Peppy's, in BDSJ."
>
>Tyz...@gmail.com: "Huh??"
>
>FoodD00d: "Like, how close is that to Bezerkeley?"
>
>(75 other articles on SlashDot for Food that are below your level of
>relevance. Click HERE to see them.)
Tim, this is your best post in years. Esp. the last line.
ObBAfood: Sorta BA, anyway... The other day, some friends and I
hit Chaya -- Venice Beach, not the Embarcadero. I have no idea how
they compare, but the decor seemed congruent with Bay Area expectations,
while the clientele, well, I can't tell you how much more I know about
cosmetic surgery than I did a few months ago.
It was a friend's birthday, so we started out with woo-woo drinks.
And I have ascertained conclusively that a cosmo made with tequila
is a laudable thing. We had mostly sushi, plus some raw oysters
and tempura, and all were good -- except that the curry sauce that
came with the tempura was vile... It reminded me of when my
grandmother used to Get Wild and add a teaspoon of curry powder
to her chicken salad.
Has anyone been to the Chaya in SF, to offer a comparison?
Rage away,
meg
--
Meg Worley _._ m...@steam.stanford.edu _._ Comparatively Literate
yuki
news:250420052146006095%tim...@removethis.got.net...
Score:5, Funny
notbob
> make their profit on premium and specialty items: the deli; wine and
> liquor; cheeses; etc. Their prices aren't competitive for staples.
The new model is having high prices on most everything and having huge
cuts on sale items. Smart shopping means buying big when an item is
on sale. I seldom buy anything unless it's 50% off, then I buy enough
to last till it's on sale again. Most things will be half off at
least once per month, staples like butter, bacon, produce, etc. Some
things are quarterly, others annually like during a holiday. A good
example is canned chicken/beef stock. A couple times per year, it's
put on sale for 50¢ a can, less than half the usual price. Last Xmas
one store priced them 3 for a $1. You can bet I bought a years supply.
nb
Mark Lipton
> Jo Ann Malina <jma...@spamthis.com> writes:
>
>>I find the restaurants being reviewed in the paper and some of the
>>ones mentioned in the group grotesquely high priced.
>
>
> Me too. I skip past reviews of places like Manresa since I have no
> interest in eating in restaurants with dress codes where dinner takes
> two hours. (OTOH I might visit some of the places Tony Lima mentioned
> in Eureka.)
For the record, Manresa has no dress code. The evening I dined there,
people were dressed in everything from suits to jeans and polo shirts.
I didn't detect any particular difference in their treatment by the
staff. It's certainly not the place for a fast meal, though.
There seems to be a preoccupation with novelty for its
> own sake at some of these restaurants, where we must not only use
> highest quality ingredients with excellent preparation, but we must
> create unlikely combinations in order to gratify the ego of the
> celebrity chef. I'd rather find a better hot-and-sour soup or try a
> new Nepalese restaurant than sample crab-stuffed troutcakes with
> raspberry aioli or whatever.
I agree with you about novelty for novelty's sake, but we may differ in
where we draw the line. (For the record, though, I have no desire to
eat in either El Bulli or The Fat Duck, even if, as with my meal at
Manresa, I'm not picking up the tab). Why, however, do you make it an
either/or proposition? I love food in all its aspects: eating,
preparing, etc. When I eat out, it's far more often in a relatively
inexpensive ethnic restaurant (Thai, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Italian)
than in a "high end" restaurant, but I can appreciate both experiences
for what they offer. My most memorable meals have come in all sorts of
different places, but it would be disingenuous of me to claim that the
meal at Manresa, e.g., wasn't high up on the list. YMMV, however.
>
>
>>That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. -- Thoreau
>
>
> Easy for Thoreau to say as he always got Emerson to pay.
>
Indeed. It's easier to extol the virtues of the simple life when all
one's comforts are provdided by others. Having lived below the poverty
line for quite a few years in my adult life, I feel no compunction about
treating myself to a good meal occasionally with the money I've worked
hard to earn.
Mark Lipton
ObFood: Of the various pizza by the slice in Berkeley, I think that
Gioia's is the most authentically NY style, though Cheese Board's may on
any given day be the most tasty.
Todd Michel McComb
Mark Lipton <not...@eudrup.ude> wrote:
>I didn't detect any particular difference in their [Manresa's]
>treatment by the staff.
One thing that does seem to attract them is enthusiastic enjoyment,
however. Once the kids started oohing and aahing, the waitstaff
crowded around to watch, and brought them extra food.
Todd Michel McComb
Agreed, and all too accurate.
I ignored the whole "this is dead" line. It is? Huh?
Michael Sierchio
> Has anyone been to the Chaya in SF, to offer a comparison?
>
I've been to both, and don't remember either. ;-/
The one in SF seems more serious about food, and the chef (at
least when last I ate there) was not a native speaker of Engrish.
That always makes the food more authentic, don't you think?
Can't beat Venice (sorta the border between Santamonica and Venice,
innit, near Rose?) for being funny.
I once had a coffee at the Rose Cafe and shared a table on
a crowded patio with an actress, who said she was impressed that
I was making an effort at pretending not to recognize her. What a
hoot. I said it was just natural ability.
"What commercials have you been in?" and she laughed uncontrollably.
"No, really -- what restaurant do you wait tables in?" Hysterical
laughter. "I don't really watch much porn, so..." and she is at
this point practically losing control of her bladder, laughing and
sobbing and thinking I am *so* funny.
I love LA.
notbob
> Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
> weekly. 10 or 20 cents......
You gotta watch Safeway, and don't be afraid to call them on it. One
Safeway here in town started jacking up the price on white onions. They
got up to $2 lb! I called 'em on it, asking the manager what the Hell
was going on. He claimed ignorance, but the price was back to around
$1 lb a couple days later. They did this two years in a row, but not
this year.
nb
Todd Michel McComb
Michael Sierchio <ku...@tenebras.com> wrote:
>"What commercials have you been in?" and she laughed uncontrollably.
>"No, really -- what restaurant do you wait tables in?" Hysterical
>laughter. "I don't really watch much porn, so..." and she is at
>this point practically losing control of her bladder, laughing and
>sobbing and thinking I am *so* funny.
I spent half a day last week with one of NBC's biggest stars (friend
of my father's). While my wife and I were more respectful -- and
I mean that genuinely, in that I took a lot out of his discussions
of how he's remained on top for so long in such a cutthroat business,
even if I don't watch TV -- the kids were more in the "eww" mode
sometimes (they hate anything that's "cool" etc.). He would just
laugh. I don't think the celebrities care about that. They can
always go read the fan sites if they're feeling underloved.
Tim May
Nakamoto <jfa...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "Jo Ann Malina" <jma...@spamthis.com> wrote
>
> > Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
> > weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
> > does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
> > broken into a trot.
>
> There's been a sea change in the supermarket/grocery market. Until a few
> years ago supermarkets like Safeway's, Albertson's and even Andronico's Park
> and Shop (Berkeley) positioned themselves to compete for the full range of
> customers. That is, they tried to serve people with a wide range of incomes.
>
> My feeling is that due to the competition from "big box" stores like CostCo,
> Walmart or even Pak'n Save (Safeway) that the traditional supermarkets are
> no longer trying to serve all markets.
Excellent point.
To which I would add the various "ethnic" supermarkets, which are
getting bigger and bigger. Out here in Santa Cruz County, there are "La
Esperanza" and similar markets scattered all around. While not as large
as the 1960s-vintage supermarkets (nor, obviously, as large as the
90s-era super-Albertson's, super-Safeways, etc.), they apparently serve
their customers well.
(And the Ranch 99 markets in the Bay Area proper presumably do the same
for the Asian customers, and some others.)
So the conventional supermarkets are in a 3-way squeeze play:
-- the luxury stores like Andronico's, Molly Stone's, Draeger's (and in
a slighly different niche, arguably a 4th squeeze direction, the Whole
Foods and Trader Joe's)
-- the box stores like Costco, Pak N Save, and even K-Mart (for some
items)
-- the ethnic and regional Mexican and Asian stores (arguably Whole
Foods and TJ's could also overlap here)
Safeway seems to have decided to start pricing as if they are a
super-premium store. I doubt this will work.
--Tim May
Tim May
<not...@eudrup.ude> wrote:
At least you said "my data are." Congratulations.
Or as the negroes say, "Major props."
(Whatever the hell that means. Propositions? Support?)
--Tim May
Tim May
<not...@eudrup.ude> wrote:
> I agree with you about novelty for novelty's sake, but we may differ in
> where we draw the line. (For the record, though, I have no desire to
> eat in either El Bulli or The Fat Duck, even if, as with my meal at
> Manresa, I'm not picking up the tab).
I haven't "not picked up the tab" for at least 18 years now. (Not
counting "You paid last time, I'll pay this time" occasional
situations, where there is still the notion of economizing, for obvious
reciprocity reasons.)
I get the sense from a lot of the posts here that some of the very
expensive restaurants people write about were in cases where someone
else was picking up the tab.
As with restaurant reviewers who are either comped to write a glowing
review or are paid by their outfits (both for the bill and of course
for their time and effort), it would be nice to know when people are
paying for a meal themselves and when their employers or others are
paying.
--Tim May
Tim May
> Tim writes:
> >SlashDot for food:
> >
> >FoodD00d: Like, anyone know a place for tacoss?"
> >
> >Tyz...@gmail.com: "Dude, like what kind. Fish or?
> >
> >FoodD00d: "Good ones, that kind. Where?"
> >
> >ElectricPrune: "Peppy's, in BDSJ."
> >
> >Tyz...@gmail.com: "Huh??"
> >
> >FoodD00d: "Like, how close is that to Bezerkeley?"
> >
> >(75 other articles on SlashDot for Food that are below your level of
> >relevance. Click HERE to see them.)
>
> Tim, this is your best post in years. Esp. the last line.
>
Thanks. I just dashed it off, needless to say.
The trend toward what I call "one line repartee" is getting very
annoying. Essays, or even long quote-and-reply responses, seem to be
scarce on a lot of the current "boards." SlashDot (/.) is only the most
obvious offender: a giant pile of garbage that has very, very few gems
buried in it. Why computer journalists keep quoting from SlashDot is a
mystery to me...wait, I called them "computer journalists," which is
both oxymoronic and self-explanatory. An oxymoron that's also a
tautology--there must be some special word for this.
On a slight tangent, some of the software may be to blame. Several
friends of mine, whom I've known for 30 years (via Intel), apparently
use "Outlook Express" under Windows to handle all of their e-mail.
Nearly all of them do the "quote the entire message then add a line of
comment at the top" routine. I think it was Julian McC. that dubbed
this the action of a "top posting 'tard."
(Not that Julian coined the "top-posting" part, just the t.p.t. phrase.)
I've tried to suggest to them, as politely as possible (as they are,
nominally, my long-time friends), that it would be much more useful and
pleasant to read if they'd quote just enough material to establish
context and then add their comments inline. I cannot believe that
Outlook Express is completely lacking in quoting tools...but I haven't
fired it up under Virtual PC on my Mac to check it.
I expect things to get worse now that Google Groups is taking over.
This will cause even more people to never "get it" about what Usenet
is, or once was, and newsgroups will increasingly look like variants of
Google or Yahoo chat rooms.
I was joking about "SlashDot for Food," but I expect something like
that is coming soon.
--Tim May
yuki
news:haGdnfCvIsD...@comcast.com...
I bought 2 tubes of toothpaste at Safeway a few weeks ago. They were
supposed to be 2-for-1, but I did not notice that I was charged full price
for them. My spouse noticed it on the receipt, it was $3 difference so I
went back the next day to get the refund. The customer service person
refunded me for the full amount. I told her that I still wanted to buy the
toothpaste at the sale price. She told me that toothpastes were mine. I was
confused, but grabbed the toothpastes & cash, walked out of Safeway before
she changed her mind. I did not realize they had such a policy. Maybe she
just did not care.
ObFood: Picked up a corned beef sandwich from JJ&F for lunch. Found out
about the frequent sandwich buyer card.
Leila
Monterey Market's outside sale bins are unbeatable. You have to be a
regular visitor, however, to get best selection and deals - I don't go
anymore since I moved 10 miles away to Southeast Oakland. When I lived
within walking distance I tended to drop by several times a week, just
to see what they had.
Leila
Leila
were just in Venice Beach, April 10-17. !!! We took our kids to Mao's
Kitchen for lunch one day, where I mused for a moment on what Tim May
would think of the Mao posters and wry quotes from the little Red Book
all over the menu. Peasant's soup, people's potstickers, Gang of Four
shrimp, Long March camp fry, etc.
"Chinese country-style cooking with red memories"
The food was really good. Looks like I'm not the only one pairing Tim
May with Venice Beach - perhaps because it's just the sort of place to
set off an epic Mayvian rant. High rent restaurants co-exist with poor
people and minorities; left wing politics prevail. Yup, guaranteed to
drive Tim berserk.
We had a lovely time. The beach is vast, clean, and paid for by our tax
dollars. The view of Santa Monica bay from our waterfront rooms was
glorious. You can drink the tapwater. Hotel was cheaper than the
equivalent in Santa Monica because of the tattoo parlors just outside.
Easy access to good coffee and good inexpensive restaurants. Playground
on the beach across the boardwalk from our hotel. Continuous parade of
fire trucks, dump trucks, sand-scraping tractors and lifeguard SUVs
below - our sons were in heaven. They want to go back to the hotel in
"hellay" immediately.
Note: the Getty museum is worth several visits, and has reasonably
priced food, hot and cold, with full and half bottles of wine in the
cafe. There are also espresso carts, snack stands and a mini cafe with
seating on a vast travertine shaded terrace. You may bring your own
picnic lunch as well, to dine on grounds or at any of the numerous,
gorgeously placed tables. Tim May alert: admission is free, parking $7,
if you bike or take the bus in you pay nothing. The views and gardens
alone are worth the trek.
Leila
Al Eisner
> There's no where where? :P I've often said the same thing about
> Gerturde Stein's writings...
You must be the life of the party!
ObLifeAfterDeath: it's curious that nearly all of the large number of
posts (many very interesting) in the past day are in a thread titled
"This NG is nearly dead".
--
Al Eisner
San Mateo Co., CA
misha
May), whether included or not in inflation figures, a more important
omission that OVERstates inflation are increases in quality.
Compare the nearly flat nominal prices of computers over the last 15
years and the vastly expanding computing power. Or compare the
computing power versus price of the computers in the Apollo moon
missions (imagine the resources marshalled for those missions) to the
technology in MP3 players.
Compare the nominal price of medical care over the past 50 years and the
dramatic increases in quality of medical care over that period. I'll
take current treatment for diseases at "inflated" prices any day that is
miraculous compared to the "cheap" treatment previously available. You
can still get the "cheap" treatment for far lower prices than
contemporary medical treatment--it's just not worth it.
Hell, pets are getting treatment that was previously unthinkable.
Even "poor" people have access to high-quality, low-cost consumer goods
that were previously only available to the wealthy, if at all.
Tim May wrote:
> In article <MA1be.65701$NC6....@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>,
> Jo Ann Malina <jma...@spamthis.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Yip Yap <y...@no.spam> is alleged to have said:
>>
>>>Is this because people are using other
>>>forums for discussion? Or is because
>>>Google News bites so hard?
>>
>>I don't eat out much any more, being on fixed income in exceedingly
>>expensive area of Peninsula. I find the restaurants being reviewed
>>in the paper and some of the ones mentioned in the group grotesquely
>>high priced. I expect others are in similar circumstances.
>>
>>Speaking of which, the prices of things at Safeway seem to climb
>>weekly. 10 or 20 cents at a time, maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it
>>does add up. Inflation may not be runaway again, but it has surely
>>broken into a trot.
>
>
> "Inflation" (= devaluation of the dollar relative to either past value
> or to other currencies, gold, etc.) is grossly underrepresented in the
> official figures.
>
> Legal services, medical services, etc. have risen dramatically in the
> past 10 years, but are not counted in official inflation figures. The
> inflation estimates (there are several...some more common than others)
> usually use a "market basket" of goods, but rarely take into account
> rising tax rates, hospital and insurance rates, and other fees and
> services which have to be paid by those who are shaken-down by shysters
> and their ilk.
>
> I agree that many of the restaurant reviews here are of places with
> exorbitant prices. I figure this is for a couple of reasons:
>
> 1. These are "special places" that the reviewer has gone to,
> representing some major occasion, such as an anniversary, a promotion,
> relatives visiting from far away, etc. A review is more likely just on
> this basis alone.
>
> 2. Impressing others. If someone drops $300 for two at some fancy
> restaurant, he usually wants to write about it.
>
> 3. Embarassment at being a tightwad. I'll bet many people here eat at
> cheap places, including Jack in the Box, Mr. Chau's, etc., but many of
> them won't admit it. Writing a review of an inexpensive place is
> admitting that one goes to such places, which is declasse.
>
> Me, I have no problem saying I like Mr. Chau's. Or the Golden Wok, on
> El Camino Real near Mathilda, a block away from the overpriced
> Pointless Fucking Chang's yuppie place. Golden Wok makes some of the
> best chicken-fried noodles I've ever had (this is served with 1, 2, or
> 3 main items, but the noodles are delicious by themselves). And this is
> all for about $5.
>
> --Tim May
Todd Michel McComb
misha <iami...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Even "poor" people have access to high-quality, low-cost consumer
>goods that were previously only available to the wealthy, if at
>all.
Over here in my world, the quality of consumer goods I can find is
plunging. They seem to get worse every year, lasting less & less
as time goes on -- no doubt to prod people into buying new ones
more frequently. My 1994 computer still works fine, but there's a
good chance that once I'm finally forced to buy a new one, it will
suffer from the same sort of shoddy workmanship that afflicts e.g.
the replacement vacuum cleaner I was recently forced to buy. Sure,
both products will be much better marketed, complete with pointless
"new features" that I'd prefer not to even have, but they'll fail
to perform their basic function that much more quickly. Woe to me
for giving away my early 1980s vintage microwave because my new
place had a built-in one ... which recently caught on fire, a common
thing, consumer web pages tell me.
So yes, the dramatic erosion in quality over the past few years is
something that makes inflation actually that much higher. Prices
of actual quality items have shot upward so quickly that I don't
have much choice but to roll the dice with junk, and hope I don't
go through ten of those for one quality item. But that's just here
in my world.
Tim May
> In spite of rising prices in medical care (the example given by Tim
> May), whether included or not in inflation figures, a more important
> omission that OVERstates inflation are increases in quality.
>
> Compare the nearly flat nominal prices of computers over the last 15
> years and the vastly expanding computing power. Or compare the
> computing power versus price of the computers in the Apollo moon
> missions (imagine the resources marshalled for those missions) to the
> technology in MP3 players.
Sure, but buying personal computers, whatever we personally might do,
is not what most Americans either do or really care about. It's not a
significant amount of their family income spent each year. And if every
several years they buy a $600 Dell computer, current prices, this is
about what they paid for color t.v.s at an earlier time.
Being that I used to work for Gordon Moore (well, a few levels down,
but I used to meet with him to brief him on projects), I certainly know
Moore's Law. But it doesn't alter the situation where tax rates,
medical bills, legal bills, are all rising sharply.
>
> Compare the nominal price of medical care over the past 50 years and the
> dramatic increases in quality of medical care over that period. I'll
> take current treatment for diseases at "inflated" prices any day that is
> miraculous compared to the "cheap" treatment previously available. You
> can still get the "cheap" treatment for far lower prices than
> contemporary medical treatment--it's just not worth it.
>
> Hell, pets are getting treatment that was previously unthinkable.
>
And, yet, life expectancy for those who have already reached adulthood
has moved up only slightly in the past 20 years, which is to be
expected.
And cats and dogs still pretty much die at the usual age. My Siamese
died at 15 of cancer...the vet said a $2500 treatment would likely
extend his life by a few months, a few months of daily injections and
not-good life quality. More for _my_ benefit, of course, than for his.
I let him go. Likewise for many other cats and dogs I have known.
Heroic, life extension treatments notwithstanding, little has really
changed.
Which is not surprising to me at all.
--Tim May
Tak Nakamoto
> Over here in my world, the quality of consumer goods I can find is
> plunging. They seem to get worse every year, lasting less & less
> as time goes on -- no doubt to prod people into buying new ones
> more frequently. My 1994 computer still works fine, but there's a
> good chance that once I'm finally forced to buy a new one, it will
> suffer from the same sort of shoddy workmanship that afflicts e.g.
> the replacement vacuum cleaner I was recently forced to buy.
I have no idea what kind of computer you're using, but PCs are one consumer
good that has improved in quality, capability and affordability over the
past decades. I've been using computers since the days when we had to key in
programs on teletype machines. And I've owned many, many generations of PCs
with different OSs. My very cheap eMachines XP model is many times more
reliable than anything I had in the early 90's. It has finally gotten to the
point where I don't think too much about the PC itself when I sit down to do
actual work.
Getting back to the topic of food and inflation, there's one good aspect to
the trend. The sheer variety of food now available is remarkable. Compared
to what supermarkets used to stock in the 70's and 80's, current
supermarkets offer foods which allow the preparation of practically any type
of cuisine. This comes at a price of course, but it wouldn't be honest to
say that there's no benefit.
Tak Nakamoto
Steve Pope
>Todd Michel McComb" wrote
>> Over here in my world, the quality of consumer goods I can find is
>> plunging. They seem to get worse every year, lasting less & less
>> as time goes on
> I have no idea what kind of computer you're using, but PCs
> are one consumer good that has improved in quality, capability
> and affordability over the past decades.
I think if you look at comparable components, such as a modem
card or ethernet card or a router, the present-day stuff is
built more cheaply than the equivalent product 15 years back.
Steve
Todd Michel McComb
Tak Nakamoto <jfa...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>My very cheap eMachines XP model is many times more reliable than
>anything I had in the early 90's.
I'm not sure what was unreliable for you in the past, but I can
only characterize the 486 as 100% reliable. I do agree with you
that computers have not _yet_ reached the point where cutting corners
and/or finding ways to force people to buy new ones is the dominant
market trend. That does seem to be on the horizon, however, if not
already slipping in quietly in places like the laptop market. I
do hold out some hope for buying a replacement at the top of the
quality invert-parabola, if I watch things carefully.
>The sheer variety of food now available is remarkable.
Agreed. Even in the past ten years, the variety has increased
notably. This is usually my first example when someone challenges
me to think of something that's better than it was 10 years ago.
(I have little/no interest in techno-gadgets, where some nominal
improvements can probably also be found.) I have really only seen
the supermarket trends noted earlier in this thread over the past
couple of years, though, so it could be a sign that they've exhausted
what they felt they could accomplish in the way of variety as a
marketing tool.
Tak Nakamoto
"Leila" wrote
There's one other advantage to Monterey Market over the Bowl: you can
actually get into the store. Admittedly it is crowded at times, but it is
not the frustrating experience that Berkeley Bowl almost always is. Berkeley
Bowl tends to bring out the claustrophobia in people who don't normally
suffer from it. I'm looking forward to the proposed new Berkeley Bowl to be
built in West Berkeley within walking distance of my house so that I can
shop more easily.
Tak Nakamoto
Mean Green Dancing Machine
Todd Michel McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
>In article <9pvbe.13704$lP1...@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
>Tak Nakamoto <jfa...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>The sheer variety of food now available is remarkable.
>
>Agreed. Even in the past ten years, the variety has increased notably.
>This is usually my first example when someone challenges me to think of
>something that's better than it was 10 years ago. (I have little/no
>interest in techno-gadgets, where some nominal improvements can
>probably also be found.)
Y'know, I really, really hope you're not referring to my cochlear implant
as a "techno-gadget". That said, I re-read _Five Patients_ a couple of
years ago and was surprised at how little medicine has changed in some
respects.
--
--- Aahz <*> (Copyright 2005 by aa...@pobox.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het Pythonista
Why is this newsgroup different from all other newsgroups?
Serene
> There's one other advantage to Monterey Market over the Bowl: you can
> actually get into the store. Admittedly it is crowded at times, but it is
> not the frustrating experience that Berkeley Bowl almost always is. Berkeley
> Bowl tends to bring out the claustrophobia in people who don't normally
> suffer from it.
We don't seem to mind it. We walk, so parking isn't an issue (or we
park two blocks away and walk), and the time in the store is wonderful
people-watching (and people-talking-with) time. One thing that helps is
we go often enough that we nearly never need a pushcart (we use the
handbaskets), so we navigate through the aisles more easily than those
pushing carts.
serene
--
http://serenejournal.livejournal.com
http://www.jhuger.com
Todd Michel McComb
Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@pobox.com> wrote:
>I really, really hope you're not referring to my cochlear implant
>as a "techno-gadget".
I'm not sure why you really, really hope that, but I was thinking
about cellphones and GPSs and that sort of thing. The medical stuff
is a big can of worms I don't even want to get into. I can't afford
medical coverage, personally.
Tak Nakamoto
"Steve Pope" wrote
> I think if you look at comparable components, such as a modem
> card or ethernet card or a router, the present-day stuff is
> built more cheaply than the equivalent product 15 years back.
>
I'm a pragmatist. I care about the results. Even if PC components are "no
name" or appear to have been manufactured more cheaply, as long as they
provide me with very reliable service they are of "high quality" in my mind
as long as the manufacturing process doesn't cause externalities that I
don't know about.
TN
Tim May
<spo...@speedymail.org> wrote:
All of my "modem cards" in my current computers are actually modem
_chips_, safely and securely wave-soldered into the mother board. My
802.11b cards are either PCMCIA/CardBus cards or similar-shaped AirPort
cards that plug securely into small connectors.
Yeah, I remember a 1200-baud Racal/Vadic modem that weighed several
pounds, had a metal enclosure, and cost a few thousand bucks. Then I
recall various generations of 2400- and 9600-baud Hayes or equivalent
modems. Each generation got smaller, with more plastic. But much more
reliable. After all, the metal enclosure of that Racal/Vadic was never
used to actually make it more reliable.
And, needless to say, very heavy integration of components makes for
better reliability.
As for quality, some things are of better quality, some of worse
quality. My flat-screen monitors and G4 Macs are of spectacular fit and
finish. Fewer "creaks" (flex) than in my laptops in years past.
ObFood: Some of my kitchen stuff is better than ever. I've written
recently about my induction cooktop and my pressure cookers.
However, I recently had a bad experience with a "superior Japanese
quality" rice cooker. I replaced my aging Revere rice cooker with an
"Aroma" model I found at Target for $20 (I don't need "fuzzy logic" to
cook rice!). Worked great, until I noticed the nonstick lining was
beginning to peel, even though I had only used the white teflon/plastic
spatula they provided.
Then I saw why: the entire bottom of the rice cooker was covered with
raised blisters. Some kind of clear materials mismatch. As if the
coating is not bonded at all to the aluminum, just "sprayed on." Which
is probably the case. Each one is a tear and peel waiting for the
spatula to hit it.
(The rice cooker has an automatic shut-off, then a warming feature,
which is all I ever have used on it, i.e., no use on stovetops or the
like.)
I may take it back to Target, but I don't have the receipt, so probably
not even worth standing in line for. Or writing about it here may have
the desired effect on the Aroma reputation, as search engines may find
this review.
--Tim May
Todd Michel McComb
Tak Nakamoto <jfa...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Even if PC components are "no name" or appear to have been
>manufactured more cheaply, as long as they provide me with very
>reliable service they are of "high quality" in my mind
I'll agree with you there, but the pattern in other markets isn't
very encouraging.
The sitdown restaurant chain is a more on-topic area where cost-cutting
measures end up overriding everything else. That and somehow finding
a way to convince people to buy it (I'm not sure how those chains
succeed there).
Meg Worley
>When are portabella-stuffed prosciutto rolls
>served with deep-fried arugula chips a "new idea" and when are they
>simply an affectation?
Oh, that's simple: It's a new idea when it tastes great (and you
hadn't already thought of it); it's an affectation when it doesn't.
Rage away,
meg
--
Meg Worley _._ m...@steam.stanford.edu _._ Comparatively Literate
Max Hauser
> <ax...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>> This is the only forum I know of that's about the local cuisine.
>
> There are others. Craigslist "food" discussion forum is
> one, (looks like 50 thread started by SF Bay users in the
> past 24 hours) but there's usually better content here.
Not to forget that this is the original Bay Area online food forum, by many
years. Others have come and gone.
Plus, it has such personality.
Tony Lima
<iami...@comcast.net> wrote:
>In spite of rising prices in medical care (the example given by Tim
>May), whether included or not in inflation figures, a more important
>omission that OVERstates inflation are increases in quality.
Excuse me for interjecting some actual facts into an
entertaining discussion, but in the U.S. both the CPI and
components of the GDP deflator are corrected for quality
improvements. You might not like the way the corrections
are done or their size but the folks at BLS and BEA do their
best. - Tony
Kent
Worley has moved to LA., and others have dropped from sight, including,
including yours truly. It's funny, news groups don't seem to go forward
without a certain group of cerebrally constipated souls screaming in the
background. Then we all lurk and occasionally talk. At present it's
absolutely boring. "alt.food barbecue" has the same problem since certain
screaming egos have quieted and have apparently left, or are asleep, or
anesthetized, or some godamned thing.
Let's hear from the trollers and the flamers.
Kent
No!!! I'm not trying to start anything up. Let someone else do it. I have
nothing to say.
"Yip Yap" <y...@no.spam> wrote in message
news:TzYae.155$zu....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> Is this because people are using other
> forums for discussion? Or is because
> Google News bites so hard?
>
> -- Yip
>
>
evergene
>Let's hear from the trollers and the flamers.
What am I? Chopped liver?
--
cleve...@newsguy.com is not my email address.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
>Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>>I really, really hope you're not referring to my cochlear implant
>>as a "techno-gadget".
>
Because otherwise it sounds like you're wishing deafness on me. Cochlear
implants have improved markedly over the last decade; I've got new
software in my implant that measurably improves my ability to hear over
what my hearing was a couple of years ago with the original software.
>...but I was thinking about cellphones and GPSs and that sort of thing.
While I agree that many current generation cell phones belong in the
techno-gadget category, there's a lot of useful trickle-down effect. I
generally use my cell phone less than fifteen minutes per months (except
for trips), but I do find the e-mail capabilities extremely useful, and
it's difficult for me to imagine getting these "baseline" features
without the driving force of techno-gadgets.
>The medical stuff is a big can of worms I don't even want to get into.
>I can't afford medical coverage, personally.
Heh. Over in alt.poly, we're arguing about "choice" right now. I'm
pretty sure you could afford it if you thought it was worth it, but
you've made clear in the past that you don't think medical care is
worthwhile. That's your business, but I hope you have the decency to
skip whining if you need medical care someday.
Todd Michel McComb
Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@pobox.com> wrote:
>Because otherwise it sounds like you're wishing deafness on me.
Oddly, while explicitly talking about my interests, I was talking
about my interests.
>You've made clear in the past that you don't think medical care
>is worthwhile.
I have particular views on what I consider to be appropriate and/or
cost effective for society in the area of medical care. While those
views are substantially different from the "do anything we can to
extend anyone's life even another minute!" view one finds in some
arenas, they don't include things like "no, don't set that broken
leg!" ... a simple procedure, I'm sure, now priced well out of
proportion with what is really involved, only because it's attached
to the general out-of-control medical industry.
>I hope you have the decency to skip whining if you need medical
>care someday.
I'll leave that to you.
ObFood: Uncle Frank's BBQ in Mountain View is supposed to open next
week. We'll see.
Steve Pope
>Because otherwise it sounds like you're wishing deafness on me.
[snip]
>You've made clear in the past that you don't think medical care
>is worthwhile.
[snip]
It is false logic to conclude that just because someone
prefers reigning in spending on medical technology that
they are "wishing [deafness/disease/whatever]" on anyone.
Money spent on high-tech medicine subtracts from money
spent on basic care -- such as neonatal care that can
prevent birth defects, including deafness.
It's a question of understanding the priorities as
opposed to dwelling on one isolated aspect of the entire field.
Steve
JC Dill
<tim...@removethis.got.net> wrote:
>In article <d4kjjm$1i2$1...@news.Stanford.EDU>, Meg Worley
><m...@steam.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>>
>> Tim, this is your best post in years. Esp. the last line.
Ditto.
>I cannot believe that
>Outlook Express is completely lacking in quoting tools...but I haven't
>fired it up under Virtual PC on my Mac to check it.
It's lame, and OE-QuoteFix helps a lot:
<http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/>
ObFood:
Dinner at Empress of India on Saturday night. This was my first time
there. What a delightful place! We had 1 vegetarian and 2 meat
eaters at our table. We were served a total of 14 dishes. 3 of them
had meat (Tandori chicken, chicken roti, a lamb dish), an alternate
vegetarian roti dish was provided for the non-meat eater and several
of the "entree" dishes were provided meatless rather than the
traditional with-meat style.
We were given 2 pots of chai and as the restaurant filled up a water
pitcher was also left with us so that we wouldn't be left with empty
glasses as the one server was helping the other tables. Our table
spread out onto the adjacent table to accommodate all the food
platters and beverage pitchers.
The owner/cook came out several times and told us about the dishes she
had prepared for us. One dish she had made special knowing that my
vegetarian friend was coming that night (he made the reservations) and
she told us all about the complex cooking preparation technique for
this dish.
At the end of the meal we had enough food left over to completely fill
3 take-home boxes, enough for ~2 more meals for each of us. The bill
came to ~$40 each including tip. $40 for excellent Indian food served
home-style with excellent table service etc. and 2 more meals at home
later is IMHO a good deal.
jc "It's good to have real usenet access again, google groups is great
as an archive but doesn't cut it for keeping up with a NG"
Max Hauser
>
> Dinner at Empress of India on Saturday night. This was my first
>
> The owner/cook came out several times and told us about the
> complex cooking preparation technique for this dish. ...
Amazing! Still going strong! This owner/cook was still Jeanne Bonk I
imagine? (Sounds like her style.)
I also had outstanding experience with this restaurant in the past, as did
others. It got a little bit of a boost from, and remained a hot topic for a
while on, ba.food starting in 1991.
-- Max
rone
evergene <cleve...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>Kent wrote:
>>Let's hear from the trollers and the flamers.
>What am I? Chopped liver?
More like foie gras.
rone
... soon you will be banned! FOREVER!
--
I don't rip people off and say it's an "homage". When I rip someone off, I am
proud to admit it's out-and-out plagiarism. - Schwa Love <schw...@yahoo.com>
Bill Woodcock
> OK. Monteros Cafe Taqueria on Solano Ave on the first block off San
> Pablo. Really good food but very slow service. Has roast leg of lamb
> which is unusual but it is my favorite dish there. The place is small
> but they do not seem to get much business on weekends so that is a
> good time to go there. I live in the south bay but I am willing to
> drive up to eat there.
Had you ever been to the original one, on University Avenue?
Some other Mexican/Latin places in Berkeley, in descending order of
goodness, starting with the really, really good:
Fonda
Dona Tomas (okay, this is really in Oakland)
Cascada
Picante
Cancun
Christopher's Nothing Fancy (and this is really in Albany)
Cactus
Juan's Place
The original Montero's was number 2 on my list. The Solano Ave. one
would be down near the middle, probably after Christopher's, which is
just around the corner. I'm willing to tolerate all the way down to
Cactus, but not as far as Juan's Place. Picante was really quite good
before it got all white-breaded-up, but that was quite a while ago, now.
-Bill
Chester
>Is this because people are using other forums for discussion? Or is because
>Google News bites so hard?
I still browse through an offline client and, while I browse Chowhound
from time to time, the frothy breathlessness that one often finds
there keeps me away for the most part.
I mostly post food stuff to my personal site nowadays and it's kind of
a pain in the wazoo to edit the entries to eliminate personal content
and to adjust for not being able to post pictures -- and it would be
even more of a pain to post pictures to the food binaries group and
cross-reference with the post.
But, anyway, I thought y'all might get a kick out of the following...
San Jose Mercury News Readers' Choice for Best Food and Drink in
Silicon Valley:
<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/eye/11688088.htm>
If you haven't/don't want to register, use:
User: thi...@fakeaddress.com
Pass: 1password
It’s a reader’s poll, so it’s patently easy to make fun of.
Criticizing the general readership of The Mercury News for their list
of favorite restaurants is like scolding a dog for misconjugating
French verbs. Down here, people wait in line to go to places like
Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s. They will wait in line to eat at
Cheesecake Factory. Wait in line! Schoolkids line up for really bad
cafeteria food, but they have no fucking choice. Anyway, the point is
that, any time you have a list assembled through popular opinion,
you’re going to get a litany of
possibly-adequate-but-generally-mediocre inoffensiveness.
It doesn’t help that The Merc uses a set of rules that doesn’t
differentiate between individual branches of chains, which ensures
that chains are going to win certain categories. Take “Best Coffee
Shop”, for example. While the chain that one would have expected to
win — Starbuck’s — didn’t win, another chain did (Peet’s). I would be
willing (and likely) to drive past two dozen Starbuck’s and Peet’s
outposts on my way to Mission City Coffee.
Other Glaring Episodes of Bovine Idiocy and a Couple Choices I
Actually Agree With Or At Least Wouldn’t Argue Vehemently Against:
* Best Overall Restaurant: A.P. Stump’s. It’s not really valid for
me to talk trash about Stump’s as I haven’t been there for two or
three years. But the fact remains that I haven’t been there for two or
three years because, two or three years after it opened, things there
seemed to begin to decline. By the time they had their suspect (to me)
fire, I had long written them off as a choice for anything other than
snacks at the bar.
* Best Mexican: Reader’s voted for Andale, which I’ve never been
to and have nothing about which to say. I just want to mention that I
think it’s cool that the editors of the list made it a point to
mention that readers should “Also Try” Coyoacan Cafe, where I get
lunch once every week or two because 1) It’s around the corner from
work, and 2) because I’ve really enjoyed the place ever since it was
“Trini’s Cafe #39? or something like that. There was a rough patch
when it took them 45 minutes to turn orders around, but that’s over
and done with and I think it’s one of the better Mexican places in the
Santa Clara/West San Jose area.
* Best American: Original Joe’s. Look, I love OJ’s. Anybody with a
soul and an affinity for monolithic chicken parmesan and heaping
plates of heartwarming ravioli loves OJ’s. But “Best American”? No.
Maybe “Best Place, Period, To Grab A Meal In Downtown San Jose After
10PM,” but I don’t see it as “Best American”.
* Best Chinese: Mandarin Gourmet. Ludicrous. The only saving grace
of this vote is that the winner wasn’t P.F. Chang’s, which is,
essentially, a wannabe-Mandarin-gourmet. It might not be as
non-Chinese-friendly, but a little cultural trepidation will be
handsomely repaid with a visit to ABC Seafood in Milpitas.
* Best Japanese: Yuki Sushi. Hallelujah, amen. That a tiny
neighborhood place stuck in an invisible corner of a rickety strip
mall next door to a model train store would get the nod makes me think
that there might be a shred of hope for the next generation. You ought
to be able to easily find more expertly-rendered Japanese (I was very
impressed by Fuki Sushi), but, for the price, Yuki Sushi is
unbeatable. Excellent food for prices that make you feel guilty for
assenting to, and the warmest owners around. I’m a latecomer to the
Yuki train, but it’s always wonderful to see everyone going in and
chatting with Doug, the proprieter. Had lunch there yesterday, in
fact, and saw Doug comp a lunch for a couple who had recently gotten
married.
* Best Italian: Maggiano’s Little Italy. It figures, you stupid
fucking cows. Have you ever gone to La Pastaia or Vin Santo? Probably
not, which is mistake #2. (Mistake #1 was exchanging legal currency
for food at Maggiano’s.)
* Best Outdoor Dining: Gordon Biersch. Fine, so the patio is nice.
Too bad you’re at Gordon-fucking-Biersch, where the beer is pretty
good and the food is pretty much not. I’d rather grab a burrito from
La Victoria and sit on the sidewalk.
* Best Restaurant For Kids: McDonald’s. Yeah, I suppose this is a
good default place to bring the kids…if you’re a shitty parent.
* Best Brunch/Breakfast: Mariani’s Inn & Restaurant. My guess is
that Mariani’s eked past due to internecine warfare between the
Stack’s and Hobee’s factions.
* Best Dive Bar: Black Watch. It might be grungy for Los Gatos,
but the Black Watch isn’t a Dive Bar. It’s in Los Gatos. The only
correct choices for this category are: The Caravan, Cinnabar,
Homestead Lounge, S&H Keye’s Club, or any other bar that is actually a
dive bar and not just simply the least yuppie bar in downtown Los
Gatos. The Caravan is attached to a motel that, according to Tree, is
often home to recent parolees. It also sells six-packs to-go. Hygiene
of the fellow patrons is often highly suspect, and that’s even with
the patrons who should be able to afford soap. Cinnabar is almost as
much of a Downtown institution and has Hamm’s in the can. Homestead
Lounge has a game machine with Photo Hunt and patrons who bring their
chihuahuas along with them to drink. S&H Keyes Club is perfectly
situated for Spartan Stadium “tailgating” and might have the hottest
bartendresses ever to staff a dive bar (aside from The Caravan’s
Megan, of course).
* Best Appetizers: E&O Trading Company. I won’t argue with this,
but I will point out that it’s one of the worst places for consumption
of anything that follows the appetizer round.
* Best Martini: Seven Restaurant. I wouldn’t be surprised if Seven
slings good martinis. It’s a sharp place, but you’ll find me on a
barstool at the Hedley awaiting Jen’s pour.
* Best Non-Napa Winery: Ridge. This is a no-brainer.
* Best Vegetarian: Who gives a shit?
* Best Sushi: Blowfish. Someone should go back and dig up all the
actual ballots submitted to The Mercury News, collate all the contact
information of those who voted for Blowfish Sushi, then hunt them down
and deny them the right to eat any sushi that doesn’t come out of a
mainstream supermarket refrigerator case. First of all, it’s all about
Sushimania. Second of all, while some of the cooked dishes at Blowfish
are fun, the only positive thing I can say about their sushi/sashimi
is that it’s served by really, really hot waitresses.
* Best Pizza: Pizza My Heart. The editors suggest Pizza Antica as
an alternative, which I can dig, though Antica always feels really
expensive to me. My more economical alternative would be Golden
Mushroom in the strip mall that’s triangled off by Saratoga Avenue,
San Tomas Expressway, and Pruneridge Avenue. It’s the sort of place
that Mission City Soccer teams go after games. The proprieter’s mom
always scolds us when we allow too much time to lapse between visits
and they make a good thin crust pizza with exactly the right
consistency. Just scarf it down fast, before it goes soggy.
* Best Deli: Erik’s DeliCafe. Whatever. Even Erik admits his place
isn’t a deli. It’s a “DeliCafe”, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to
be. Two problems with Erik’s: First, [Childhood Friend #1] used to
work there and the only stories more horrifying than [Childhood Friend
#1]’s stories of Erik’s were [Childhood Friend #2]’s behind-the-scenes
stories of Togo’s. Second, it’s not Lupretta’s. Lupretta’s was a few
blocks down Stevens Creek for ages, next door to the surplus store and
JJ’s Blues. But they recently moved to a new location in Saratoga,
perilously close to Los Gatos. I miss their Dominic’s Special on the
soft sweet roll, their stupendous minestrone, and heavenly ravioli.
* Best After-Hours Eats: The Mini Gourmet is okay, but the only
reason to go there is because you’re too tired to drive down 87 to get
to the true temple of after-hours dining: The Cardinal. Most of you
know this, but for those of you who don’t know: there’s no need for a
menu. Just order the huevos rancheros.
Frankly, it seems silly to devote so much time and energy to polling
the general public on all of this when all they need to do is politely
ask me for my opinion.
Chester
JC Dill
wrote:
> * Best Dive Bar: Black Watch. It might be grungy for Los Gatos,
>but the Black Watch isn’t a Dive Bar. It’s in Los Gatos. The only
>correct choices for this category are: The Caravan, Cinnabar,
>Homestead Lounge, S&H Keye’s Club, or any other bar that is actually a
>dive bar
Ugly's on ECR just west/north of Shoreline in Mouton Vieux.
jc
Max Hauser
|
|>* Best Dive Bar: Black Watch. It might be grungy for Los Gatos,
|>but the Black Watch isn't a Dive Bar. It's in Los Gatos. The only
|>correct choices for this category are: The Caravan, Cinnabar,
|>Homestead Lounge, S&H Keye's Club, or any other bar that
|>is actually a dive bar
|
| Ugly's on ECR just west/north of Shoreline in Mouton Vieux.
Have you actually been into that place? Report, please. --M
no_spam
> |>The Caravan, Cinnabar, Homestead Lounge, S&H Keye's Club, Black
Watch....
Sheesh. those are all my favorite bars. I'm a diver.
Regards.
rone
Chester <cheste...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * Best Outdoor Dining: Gordon Biersch. Fine, so the patio is nice.
>Too bad you’re at Gordon-fucking-Biersch, where the beer is pretty
>good and the food is pretty much not.
The beer ain't even that good. Their pilsner is sub-mediocre
(although not as bad as Sam Adams's pilsner, but that's not saying
much) and they have really nothing that i would recommend to anyone.
> * Best Non-Napa Winery: Ridge. This is a no-brainer.
Hey, how about Bonny Doon? Ridge's grounds are very nice, but their
wine runs hot-and-cold for me. BD's wines are mostly great, they
always have a lot available to taste (and more open if you ask), it's
free, and the people are always wonderful.
> * Best Sushi: Blowfish. Someone should go back and dig up all the
>actual ballots submitted to The Mercury News, collate all the contact
>information of those who voted for Blowfish Sushi, then hunt them down
>and deny them the right to eat any sushi that doesn’t come out of a
>mainstream supermarket refrigerator case.
I don't care for nigiri, but the best sashimi i've had is at Sushi Masa.
> * Best Pizza: Pizza My Heart.
Giorgio's.
>Frankly, it seems silly to devote so much time and energy to polling
>the general public on all of this when all they need to do is politely
>ask me for my opinion.
Send them your phone number next time.
rone
--
"If the movie was an episode of 'Battlestar Galactica' with a guest appearance
by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is 'Citizen Kane'
with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in
the world you ever hated dies at the end." -- Warren Ellis, on 'From Hell'
JC Dill
<maxR...@THIStdl.com> wrote:
>"JC Dill" in message news:s7bf919em5icegdip...@4ax.com...
>| Ugly's on ECR just west/north of Shoreline in Mouton Vieux.
>
>Have you actually been into that place? Report, please. --M
Yes. They have $2 cosmos on Wednesday nights. We had ~15 people
there for a birthday party 2 nights ago.
I wouldn't go there alone to hang out (but I feel that way about
almost all bars). Go there with friends and it's a fun place.
jc
Max Hauser
| | * Best Non-Napa Winery: Ridge. This is a no-brainer.
|
| Hey, how about Bonny Doon? Ridge's grounds are very
| nice, but their wine runs hot-and-cold for me. BD's wines
| are mostly great, they always have a lot available to taste
| (and more open if you ask), it's free, and the people are
| always wonderful.
It's not about the grounds, or how wonderful the visitor-staff are, it's
more from taking a long view of California wine. (Historically, good
wineries in California had no visitor staff anyway -- the winemaker was
flattered to greet anyone who happened to know about the place and find it.
People judged the winery by what was in the bottle, when ready to drink.
Some wineries are still like that, notably in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But
trumpeting about "free tastes" and "lifestyle" in one or two popular
magazines a couple of decades back, and subsequent Disneylandation of the
Napa Valley -- Silver Oak, for instance, has a large and expert visitor
staff capable of moving probably 300 head of visitors per hour through a
brisk introduction, tasting room, and gift shop -- have altered the
priorities of the average visitor.)
It's more about things like Paul Draper at Ridge objecting to UC Davis and
the hubristic overselling of the new "scientific" Aramon x Rupestris #1 vine
rootstock in the 1980s even as evidence accumulated that it was vulnerable
to the long-vanquished Phylloxera pest. (Excerpt below.) Draper was right,
the California wine industry is still picking up the pieces from the "AxR
debacle," and people are more careful now. It's about things like the _Wall
St. Journal_ article a dozen or so years ago, "Ridge at the Pinnacle,"
reviewing the respect that Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet has around the world
as a flagship "serious" wine of the United States, for some 40 years. It's
about Ridge's role, with a few other and earlier wineries such as Martin
Ray, in opening the Santa Cruz Mountains to serious consideration, paving
the way for many of the wineries that greet the casual visitor now, with
their tasting staffs and their wines that are "mostly great." (I like Bonny
Doon too, other than Randall Graham's excruciating pun-filled newsletter,
but it's a different kind of animal completely than Ridge is.)
By the way we organized one or two very fine picnics, via ba.food, at Ridge
in 1991-92. All bring-your-own-food, buy a bottle or two at the winery if
you like. Very casual. (At one picnic we wondered what was the smoke over
the East Bay Hills, visible so clearly from Ridge's hillside. Turned out it
was the notorious Oakland Hills Fire ...)
Cheers -- Max
This was posted last year on alt.food.wine and is from the January 1993
newsletter "Ridge Report." (A newsletter that favors content over puns.)
"Although a wide variety of phylloxera-resistant hybrid rootstock had been
in use prior to Prohibition, the University began its own research.
Winemaking had been re-invented, why not re-invent viticulture as well? . .
. Rootstock crosses ... were tested. Because none of these academics had
any personal or cultural memory of the [European phylloxera] disaster of the
1870s, some of the hybrids included non-resistant Vitis vinifera crossed
with resistant American stock. One such was AxR, a cross already found by
Europeans to be inadequately resistant. In early field tests, . . . yields
were higher. The University seemed to have found its very own all-purpose
rootstock, one not in use in Europe, where cultural memory of the
devastation of the 1870s was still present, and where there had been no
break in the empirical tradition. . . . By the nineties, seventy percent of
vineyards in Napa and Sonoma were grafted on AxR rootstock The stage was
set for disaster. . . . The first recognized outbreaks appeared in the
early 1980s . . .the University, with some reservations, continued to
recommend AxR right up until 1988. It appears clear that over the next ten
years or so, the majority of vineyards in Napa and Sonoma will have to be
replanted. . . . [Ridge's own plantings remained on a traditional,
phylloxera-resistant, Saint George rootstock.] We were not on the "cutting
edge" as defined by the University. We deliberately looked to the
techniques of pre-Prohibition California, techniques virtually identical to
those used for centuries to make the finest European wines. We were not
impressed with the simple, clean, fruity wines produced by "modern
techniques." Why, we reasoned, would the academics know anything more about
fine-grape-growing than they did about fine winemaking?" (Paul Draper)
Alison Chaiken
Chester <cheste...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> * Best Outdoor Dining: Gordon Biersch. Fine, so the patio is
>>nice. Too bad you're at Gordon-fucking-Biersch, where the beer is
>>pretty good and the food is pretty much not.
"rone" <^*&#$@ennui.org> writes:
> The beer ain't even that good. Their pilsner is sub-mediocre
I like the bitterness of GB's pils although their marzen is a
bottle-of-starch. I find it odd that the marzen is GB's flagship brew
since the pils and bock are so much better. There are several
breweries that market what I consider to be their most ordinary
products as their flagship beer. New Belgium Brewing with their dull
Fat Tire immediately comes to mind.
--
Alison Chaiken "From:" address above is valid.
(650) 236-2231 [daytime] http://www.wsrcc.com/alison/
Notions and scruples were like spilt needles, making one afraid of
treading, or sitting down, or even eating. -- George Eliot
rone
Alison Chaiken <alison+gnus20...@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com> wrote:
>I like the bitterness of GB's pils although their marzen is a
>bottle-of-starch.
Geez, a pilsner should not be bitter, it should be floral and hoppy.
>I find it odd that the marzen is GB's flagship brew
>since the pils and bock are so much better. There are several
>breweries that market what I consider to be their most ordinary
>products as their flagship beer. New Belgium Brewing with their dull
>Fat Tire immediately comes to mind.
Mass appeal, probably. I like Fat Tire, but i much prefer their Blue
Paddle. After my long-standing complaints of being unable to find a
single palatable American pilsner, now i have Blue Paddle and Lagunitas.
Alison Chaiken
I wrote:
> >I like the bitterness of GB's pils although their marzen is a
> >bottle-of-starch.
"rone" <^*&#$@ennui.org> writes:
> Geez, a pilsner should not be bitter, it should be floral and hoppy.
Well maybe I should have said "sour" rather than "bitter." I like
pilsners a bit sour.
> I like Fat Tire, but i much prefer their Blue Paddle.
Blue Paddle is okay but the Trippel and 1554 are standouts and the
Loft isn't bad either.
jswa...@yahoo.com
rone wrote:
> In article <x6y89z9r...@capsicum.wsrcc.com>,
> Alison Chaiken <alison+gnus20...@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com> wrote:
> >I like the bitterness of GB's pils although their marzen is a
> >bottle-of-starch.
>
> Geez, a pilsner should not be bitter, it should be floral and hoppy.
Actually, Pilsners can be very bitter.
German Pilsners, that is.
One Pilsner I had in Germany was so bitter,
I could hardly believe it.
At least one of them was, anyway.
One of these days, I must go back there,
and see if it is still as bitter as I thought
it was then.
Slainte,
JW
Joseph Michael Bay
>One Pilsner I had in Germany was so bitter,
>I could hardly believe it.
>At least one of them was, anyway.
Worst. Haiku. Ever.
--
Chimes peal joy. Bah. Joseph Michael Bay
Icy colon barge Cancer Biology
Frosty divine Saturn Stanford University
By reading this line you agree to mow my lawn. NO GIVEBACKS.
no_spam
> jswa...@yahoo.com writes:
>
>
>>One Pilsner I had in Germany was so bitter,
>>I could hardly believe it.
>>At least one of them was, anyway.
>
>
> Worst. Haiku. Ever.
>
I could hardly believe it
Easy on the hops
Still the Worst. Haiku....
rone
>> Worst. Haiku. Ever.
>Still the Worst. Haiku....
a harsh cold winter
could not be more bitter than
this german pilsner
rone
it's the seasonal reference, you see
Tim May
<jcd...@gmail.com> wrote:
Why I don't go to bars. Chicks who aren't pros only go to bars when
surrounded by their honor guard.
--Tim May
Phil Parkman
across the hall from Mountain Charley's, the LG institution.
Apparently, it's named the 180 lounge because it's exactly
the opposite of Mountain Charley's. Well, I haven't been
to Mountain Charley's for 15 years so that point was lost on
me, but my friends and I did have a good dinner there.
The chef, Nick Difu, used to be at Cafe Marcella, which we
always enjoyed, which was enough to bring the gang.
Normally, it's all about the food for me, but
the decor (and the scene) at 180 makes a real effort to be
noticed. They have an industrial theme, with bolts keeping
your check from blowing away (I didn't notice the strong breeze).
In all honesty, it struck me as out of place in Los Gatos,
but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
We started with drinks (The drink menu is thicker than either
wine or food) My martini came with blue cheese in the olives
which wasn't as bad as I expected, prices were high but quantity
was good. We also had appetizers at the bar, a foie gras and
crab cakes. The crab cakes presentation was busy with beans,
sauce, greens and only two crab cakes; the foie gras was expertly
seared, and came with the requisite toast points.
Salads were very good. I had an ahi tuna salad with macadamia
nut dressing that I really enjoyed. Instead of working my way through
the greens to get at the fish, I found myself enjoying the ensemble
with each bite. The dressing had a hint of Asian influence that worked.
Standard salads seemed good enough to the others.
Most of our table had the filet of beef; everyone agreed that it was
prepared to order, and that portion and quality were just right.
I had a smaller portion of salmon, the smaller portions being an
option for some of the menu items. My wife had the halibut,;she
preferred the fish itself to the accompaniments. The winelist is
exclusively Californian.
There were a limited number of desserts. We shared a Chocolate
decadence, which hit the mark for chocolate content, and what else
is necessary?
If I seem to give short shrift to the food, it's unfair to the chef, who
does
an excellent job. However, this is a place to be seen and to quaff
"martinis"
in an atmosphere that would have been trendy in NY or LA five years ago.
As a result, the clientele runs to SV execs with trophy wives. It is quite
loud even though the tables are well spaced. Incidentally, prices were not
exceptionally high; I'd bet that they'll be going up when and if it gets
difficult
to get a table.
Phil
Tim May
<ppar...@comcast.net> wrote:
....
> which wasn't as bad as I expected, prices were high but quantity
> was good. We also had appetizers at the bar, a foie gras and
...
> loud even though the tables are well spaced. Incidentally, prices were not
> exceptionally high; I'd bet that they'll be going up when and if it gets
...
Instead of just hinting at the prices, saying at one point "prices were
high" and then at another "prices were not exceptionally high," when we
have no idea whether what "high" or "not high" or "not exceptionally
high" means to YOU, why not just tell us what the bill per person was,
with wine and tips?
(For me, "high" is $25 per person. "Exceptionally high" is anything
over $40 per person. So you can see why a review from me saying a
restaurant charges "exceptionally high" prices may not be too useful if
I don't give actual tabs. Estimates are good enough, by the way.)
--Tim May
Phil Parkman
"Tim May" <tim...@removethis.got.net> wrote in message
news:050620052233395797%tim...@removethis.got.net...
round
of cocktails (~$10 per drink), 4 courses, and a moderate bottle of wine
(~$40)
included, but not tip. To you - exceptionally high, to me, ok for a special
occasion.
Phil