From
"California’s Luxury Dining Circuit: Delicious and Dull/The French Laundry, the Restaurant at Meadowood and SingleThread have much in common: amazing precision, sky-high prices and a sedating sort of predictability" (NYT):
The macaroni and cheese in the golden egg, served as part of the tasting menu at the French Laundry, was absurdly delicious. The short noodles, cut by hand, had a tender spring. They were bound in a light, melting cloud of Parmesan. The result was simple, built on the retro American dishes that the chef, Thomas Keller, once wittily reimagined as high culture and maxed out to total extravagance....
[T]he dishes, and the ways they were delivered, reminded me of what’s possible when both the kitchen and the wait staff are operating at the highest level: sustained indulgence in an atmosphere of total comfort. The servers brought the gold-rimmed dish sets out and placed them down in unison. After lifting the egg tops and revealing the macaroni, they rained down a messy shower of black truffles, half on the food and half on the table, filling the air with perfume.
It was a stunning production. But the oversize golden egg on a series of gold plates did seem archaic — and not just because the French Laundry has used this presentation, for various dishes, for years. In the Trump era, gold seems a bit too eager to assert its value.....
The second-highest-rated comment:
This might be the most depressing article I have read recently. The image of these uber wealthy couples sitting in silence waiting for course after course of beautifully crafted art posing as food only reinforces my belief that all the money in the world cannot buy class. Am I right about that, Donald?
If this is
the most depressing article you've read recently, you ought to be thanking the President of the United States. I'm sure the NYT would serve bad news stories about
Trump if they had them. Their reporters would bring that news out on gray-rimmed dish sets and place them down in unison each morning and rain down a messy shower of dark opinions filling your breakfast-table air with stench. But the supplier isn't cooperating, so your hunger for the depressing will be met with the news that some expensive restaurants are too
boringly perfect. And the day before, the NYT served,
"Women Poop...." What a world of starvation for badness!
Posts
76 comments:
Amen. You can have a little recession whinging for the non-existent recession TV media is whinging about. With truffle shavings if you want...
all the money in the world cannot buy class
Define "class".
“I'm sure the NYT would serve bad news stories about Trump if they had it.”
The NYT doesn’t have the goods so it makes up stories.
I ate at The French Laundry back in the 80’s. It wasn’t that expensive then. And not crazy good. Better restaurants in Omaha.
Extravagant dining has been around forever. Thank You, President Trump for calling these prigs out on their privilege.
Add this to the list of accomplishments, only President Trump had the ability to address.
I'm seeing this attitude as prevail amongst leftist on Facebook. It sends the thing to do now is troll others comments and remark how miserable Trump is making the world. This isn't dirty money driven, as I know these depressing people and there sad world really is their own making. But personal responsibility is hard for them and these news very often allows them to blame Trump. They continue that blame game even when the issue has nothing to do with Trump.
On his headstone, the late NYT editor Abe Rosenthal had carved, “He kept the paper straight.” But old Abe is spinning in his grave today.
The only people I actually know who have gone to the French Laundry are flaming liberal San Franciscans (in laws). They RAVE about it. I guess everybody has a little Trump in them!!!
The French Laundry is stagnant and it’s Trump’s fault?
How trite. First world problems.
The French laundry is kind of a fun show. A piece of art is placed in front of you. You take a bite. You’re amazed. Contemplative. The plate is whisked away. Only a bite, sorry. On to the next one. Then the next. Carefully paced. Dinner theatre.
Trump is Rodney Dangerfield from Back to School or Caddyshack. Saying he doesn’t have “class” is just playing into his hand.
California and "class" may be an oxymoron. Look at the Hollywood of Harvey Weinstein, or the political giving of Buck. The old sneer of "new money" seems appropriate in this instance.
You need a "more money than sense" tag.
Nice that Althouse feels the need to serve up a nice boost to you people's self esteem. I love these subtle trolls.
Nattering nabobs of negativism.
...wittily reimagined as high culture and maxed out to total extravagance....
I've seen custom AR's like that.
Donald Trump's resorts DEFINE refined class and taste. So much so, that American lefties are starting to loathe refined class and taste.
Howard possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions.
Sorry, I was reading Lord Jim and I thought that “Jim’s father” was based on Howard, our resident Calvinist.
Maybe The French Laundry is stagnant because it’s patrons are stagnant.
Depressing! I started laughing reading that. Macaroni and cheese is delicious. Rich people should get to eat at too they just have to make it extra fancy
AGENT SMITH: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost.
Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.
The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
I say 'your civilization' because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our civilization, which is, of course, what this is all about.
The French laundry is kind of a fun show. A piece of art is placed in front of you
Yes, after you get past my snark, it is important to understand that some establishments are as much, or more entertainment as sustenance.
There a place in Davenport. Duck City Bistro. We spent almost $150. Reservations only, no surprise. When you enter, the Chef, introduces you to your meal, its a show! He stands out front, and goes through each of that nights entrees and how they are put together. Then ushered to your table, covered in white paper, with a hand written welcome message, and if you're celebrating, they make that a personal theme for you.
The Bistro is across the street from the historic Adler Theater, which is next to the historic, and wonderfully restored Black Hawk hotel. So its a great one or two night get away on the Mississippi. Supper, show, great room and service.
Contrast that with Texas Road House. A chain steakhouse that delivers a very good steak, and their ribs are at the top end of good ribs, but lack some consistency. Better than Famous Daves, but not as good as our local smoke house, which is much better than Hickory Park in Ames. Not as good as the 4 racks I did over Labor Day weekend. What I do find extremely entertaining is their science of turning tables. From the time a diner, steps away from the table, to when new butts hit the chair, is no more that 3 minutes. What I'm saying is, dining out is an experience. Go with someone you can enjoy the experience as it is laid out before you.
I wonder what the carbon footprint is for a meal at the French Laundry.
I wonder why none of the liberals who eat there wonder what the carbon footprint is for a meal at the French Laundry.
Actually, I wonder neither of those things.
I'd say a restaurant like this is good if you're not into having a conversation with your companions other than minimal, quiet comments about how lovely the restaurant is. Maybe you have a spouse who isn't a reliable chatterer.
It's also good for people like me who have an impaired sense of smell (and therefore "taste"): the visual takes the place of what can't be sensed directly.
Mac and cheese with truffles? Sounds delicious, not depressing.
Anyway, Althouse is right: Trump is not delivering useable disasters. No wars, no recession, no collusion: besides the occasional tweet, he gives doomsday Dems little to work with.
Maybe you have a spouse who isn't a reliable chatterer.
Maybe you’re dating a very good-looking guy, much younger than you, and if he starts speaking it will kill the attraction.
The joy comes from having the trained servants kow towing to the Aristocrat class. The food could be canned or off the shelf prole food. It's the status they are enjoying. To complete the evening they will all use the solid gold toilets to eliminate the food, as further proof of their high status. All that is missing is the belly dancers.
Howard, as is so often the case, mistakes amusement at the antics of the left, for self esteem.
Mac and cheese ?
Sebastian said...
"Mac and cheese with truffles? Sounds delicious, not depressing."
You can get the same effect using truffle oil. Personally. I think truffles are over rated. my daughter makes a three cheese mac and cheese one of which is smoked Guda. It is very good.
Trump demands the excellence and value in care and maintenance of the best. And he has spent billions of dollars on doing just that for 3 years for the America we live in. That is a standard never seen in DC before.
Another inspired post, Althouse. I read it out to my wife over breakfast.
The irony is that this vulgar display of wealth and pretension is the Venn diagram of the ideal Times subscriber: upper-middle class or aspiring and uncertain of its status markers.
The lower classes don't give a ratfuck for these status markers, and the elite class follow their own markers.
I thought the trouble with Trump is he eats fast food?
The image of these uber wealthy couples ...blah blah ... cannot buy class.
Poor little guy is jealous.
I ate at the French Laundry once. Once.
It was our Anniversary and our friends took us there. Ridiculously expensive.
Personally, I’d rather have a glass of wine and a nice steak at Morton’s, followed by a Barrel Aged Manhattan. Perfection.
Ann:
You and Meade really ought to visit Napa. Now. Nothing else like it in the world. YOLO.
And I would highly recommend a stop at Staglin Family Vineyard. Google it. The Parent Trap.
Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge and up into Napa County is really something. We attended the county fair in Sonoma. It was September or October back in the 80's.
I would rank Napa over a trip down the Niobrara River in Nebraska. No chance in Napa of going over the Norden Chute and getting yourself killed.
Precious food for precious people.
High Prices doesn't buy good food - just exclusivity. Who can blame rich people for wanting to dine with other rich people? Let them eat their $100 Mac and Cheese in peace.
The American elite doesn't do snobbery very well. They come off as 2nd Rate English Aristocrats, or silly middle class house-fraus looking down on someone for buying the wrong kind of car or toilet paper.
It’s just these ridiculously-priced entrees and that lying son-of-a-bitch Trump!
"A writer in London has punked TripAdvisor in the most extreme way possible, creating a fictional eatery that became the city's top rated restaurant."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2017/12/08/tripadvisor-gets-totally-punked-when-fake-restaurant-is-ranked-no-1/#2e0f6ff72c23
The very fact that Trump was mentioned shows the depths of TDS insanity that prevails.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
...
It's also good for people like me who have an impaired sense of smell (and therefore "taste"): the visual takes the place of what can't be sensed directly.
9/19/19, 7:50 AMNothing like a good picture of a bacon cheese burger.
maybe this TDS crowd is trying to show the need for a collapsed economy
Apparently, Trump is living rent free inside these little Foodie's heads.
Maybe, these little NYT Nancyboys oughta focus on the task at hand?
Just a thought.
Presentation in serving your food is important. How it looks to the eye when nicely plated does have an effect on how you appreciate the taste of the food.
Slop the crap on the plate like a prison chow line. Or arrange the elements to give anticipation of the tasting to come.
However, the French Laundry takes it to another level of ostentatious snobby extravagance. While the food is often tasty, it doesn't live up the the overinflated hype of the presentation.
Balance in everything is necessary.
Trump could easily put on airs of sophistication if he wanted to, but that is not who he is. If he did, the leftists would criticize him as an elitist and privileged snob who doesn't understand how the common man lives.
Trump seems to understand and appreciate common people. Thus, he must be condemned as having no class. It is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario with the Left.
They are deeply neurotic people who need constant affirmation of their merits, sophistication and virtue. Trump, unlike other Republicans, does not give them any hint of that affirmation. Thus, he must be vilified in everything he does.
A man who eats his well-done steak with ketchup is not going to be obsessed with the latest food trends.
The food snobbery movement is a movement left.
‘all the money in the world cannot buy class
Define "class".’
The best examples of class I’ve found in a little book by Sietze Buning called STYLE AND CLASS.
He compares two towns in Northwesr Iowa, one with style but the other with class. Fun read.
Le Mac au Fromage at Senderens in Paris was good--
...but their Peh, Beh et Zheh was magnifique!
Especially when paired with a fine Lait au Chocolate
Meanwhile, San Francisco restaurants are in grave difficulties due to high rents, byzantine permitting, and staffing problems due to $15 minimum wage.
Read it and weep
If this is the most depressing article you've read recently, you ought to be thanking the President of the United States.
No kidding. What an ill-informed person to be so upset over a first-world problem.
So if I take my standard mac and cheese and I cut it up by hand, will it then be much better? Do I need a special knife or fancy golden scissors?
Althouse as a service to your devoted deplorable followers who refuse to directly read the NYT and WaPo, why don't you post a collage composed Dire Climate Change Articles and Opinion Pieces and the travel section and lifestyle sections? That way Howard and the others can explain to us proles why The Vanguard are worthy of special dispensations.
Speaking of hoity toity meals, last week while in Philly I want to La Croix at Rittenhouse Square and had the six course tasting menu with the wine pairing. Beautiful restaurant, beautifully plated, lovely view and the food mostly tasty and fashionably minute. Fortunately the six glasses of wine were not only very good but properly sized poured. Next time I'll go across the street to Parc. Bigger portions for the same money and to me, just as tasty.
May The French Laundry should serve Big Macs and taco bowls.
It is a coincidence that a story just came out about Michael Vick (football QB) meeting Arthur Blank (Falcons owner) for dinner just before the 200? draft. They met at a super expensive steak house where most of the diners are on their expense accounts. (I often enjoyed such places when the client was paying).
Vick grew up very poor and had no idea about the steaks on the menu, so he ordered chicken fingers for dinner. Arthur Blank was shocked. The Falcons still drafted Vick #1. I thought Blank showed class.
I went to the French Laundry about 10 years ago with siblings. It was a wonderful experience for me. If approached as something one does once in a lifetime, that's ok. As a lifestyle, ridiculous...
I've eaten at some very high end ($150-200PP plus drinks or wine)Never been all that impressed. Food was fine and spectacular visually. It tasted fine but nothing much out of the ordinary.
Portions were miniscule to the point where I stopped at McDonalds on the way back to hotel.
Just thankful I was not paying.
Going on a food tour of Las Vegas Tuesday. 4 celebrity chef restaurants. Appetizer in one, Soup in another, main course in a 3rd, Dessert in a 4th. We get to meet the famous chef in each.
It will be fun but I am also happy there is a Denny's next to my hotel just in case.
John Henry
Skylark,
I was just rereading Lord Jim a few weeks ago. I really like the book until Jim goes into the Jungle.
Conrad is one of my favorite writers but just as soon as he gets away from the sea, I find him a bit dull. Heart of Darkness is an exception. He gets away from the sea but is still on a river so still a seaman.
I think the best part of the book is Conrad's discussion of Montague "Big" Brierly. Something about that in particular has always stuck with me. Charlie Marlowe's discussion of the young pups he has trained and how he "Would have staked my life on Jim. And I would have been wrong"
The Librivox reading of Lord Jim is excellent.
John Henry
I don't recall couples sitting in silence when I ate at The French Laundry. People chatting and milling about, popping into the kitchen, taking a walk out through the grader in between courses. I distinctly recall the rooms becoming more boisterous as the wine and spirits flowed...
...Dining at Meadowood was a bit of a bore...
Keller makes the best fried chicken at Ad Hoc. He used to make kits to make it at home. Heaven.
Again, the best part?
They deserve their misery.
...gar-den.
If this is the most depressing article you've read recently, you ought to be thanking the President of the United States.
That's GOOD NEWS! Here's what OTHER papers reported, with Other Presidents
Germany Declares War! All Europe is in Arms
!500 dead in Hawaii Congress Votes WAR
US Attacks IRAQ
N Korea Reds Declare WAR
Jews, Arabs WAR report Cairo Bombed
Russians Invade Afghanistan
Dave Begley said...
Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge and up into Napa County is really something. We attended the county fair in Sonoma. It was September or October back in the 80's.
YES! THE KEY to an enjoyable California trip, is to do it "back in the 80's." Very NICE! Back then
You can get the same effect using truffle oil. Personally. I think truffles are over rated. my daughter makes a three cheese mac and cheese one of which is smoked Guda. It is very good.
I know nothing of truffles, but do know mac and cheese is definitely not limited to stereotypical Kraft in a box. Just like assuming spaghetti sauce is like Chef Boyardee in the can.
BTW, Chef was a real person.
YES! THE KEY to an enjoyable California trip, is to do it "back in the 80's." Very NICE! Back then
The 50s were even better and it got worse with each year after 1980.
‘all the money in the world cannot buy class
...................
Define "class".’
People who have class never mention it.
Hence, no further comment from me on the subject.
With Donald Trump you'll have so much class that you'll get tired of being classy.
The only thing worse than pretentious restaurants are the people who like them.
Yeah, I like the French Laundry too. Classy place. But I'm not a finicky eater. In fact, my general view is that all food tastes great with enough alcohol.
My mother waited tables for 55 years (age 15-80). She believed that restaurants had to be consistentto become successful. They. had to be consistently good, bad or mediocre. That meets the needs and expectations of most diners.
I have eaten in more than my share of fancy restaurants. They are great places to eat, but rarely worth the money. However, they are consistently pretentious and impress people who find that important.
People who have class never mention it.
Hence, no further comment from me on the subject.
Too late!
My favorite in SFO for years has been The Boulevard Restaurant.
It used to be almost impossible to get a reservation. Nobody talks about it.
I couldn't detect a whiff a slavery in this account
My favorite restaurant is Rio Grande on Mays Street in Round Rock, Texas. I've been going there for 19 years and the food is always, always, always freshly prepared, hot hot hot, and delicious. I suspect this has some relationship to the family ownership and staffing, which provides that consistency across the years which is lauded in the comments above.
Before that, my favorite restaurant was Jimmy the Greeks in Marietta, GA, another family run place. And before that, the Aloha in Greenville, SC, where the owner/hostess would serve us hungry college kids enough MSG-enhanced goodness every Saturday night to keep us going for another whole week.
And the fate of Lord Jim is a perfect example of how to hold liberals accountable when their good intentions lead to the predictable, and predicted, horrible outcomes. That's right, spell out the penalty for failure up front, then penalize the failure when it happens. How often would Biden grope preteen girls if he got his nads kicked every time he tried it?
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