Okay, so I’ve never, ever claimed to be a food critic. That is, one of those dudes who sneak into restaurants and pretend not to be food critics and then go write about it.
Or is it food reviewer? Whatever it is, it implies a certain authority. To be a true food critic, you have to be better than all the other food-critic aspirants . . . at writing.
You have to be able to organize your thoughts and present an argument in a succinct and somewhat reasoned fashion. You have to present your case pro or con and do it in an adequately descriptive and if possible, entertaining manner.
In other words, in a review of a restaurant, one should, in general, hesitate at venturing opinions such as “It fucking sucked.”
But now it seems everyone is a food critic. There is an explosion of food critics. People are food critics because they can be food critics. Blog after blog after self-appointed neighborhood foodie watchgroups are sprouting all over the Internet. Forums rage over the pros and cons of the latest restaurants.
But just try to read some of this stuff; it’s like Miss Wong in English class delivered an assignment to review a restaurant near your high school.
A sample: “well... believe it or not, this chez panisse is actually in the 1000 things to do before you die list! and i've been there twice!!!! anyways, the first time was REALLY good and the second time was just so so.”
This is akin to accidentally knocking over someone’s purse and having to pick up a pair of smelly panties.
I may not play a food critic, but I am one on the Internet.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Chowhound vs. eGullet Smackdown
Um, okay, well, not a smackdown, but to even post a “food bubble” on Steven Shaw’s exalted forums, one needs to actually pen an essay in order to register. An essay. In order to register. What the fuck is this, 8th grade?
Chowhound? Username, email, password. Need I say more?
Elitism is alive and well in FoodDom. Fatguy has become Fatcat.
Chowhound? Username, email, password. Need I say more?
Elitism is alive and well in FoodDom. Fatguy has become Fatcat.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Hi-Debt Sellavision
Well, here we go, folks: here is the reality of “HDTV” as it stands in early 2007.
It’s a mess. Not as much as a mess as it was 5 years ago or even two years ago, and thankfully, not as wallet-flattening as buying a used SUV, but it is most definitely a mess.
Thank god I’ve figured it all out over this past two months, and am going to impart to you lucky few this vast knowledge that will save you mountains of Trudeaus (dunno—is he even on a bill?) You folks in the USA don’t deserve any money-saving just because of the outrageous shipping charges on everything I have to buy from you because it’s not available in Canada, the ones that always cancel out any savings I might make by avoiding the GST and brokerage fees. (Just kidding; I'm American too, but your shipping rates still blow.)
Got a few minutes? Pull up your comfy leather chair — you know, the one with the silhouette of the dude getting his hair blasted by speaker blowback — and relax. Have a drink. Have two, or if you just put down some Franklins on some HDTV box or other and are awaiting its arrival, go for broke, open the whole case and call in sick for the rest of the week. You’re gonna need the break.
First of all, no one is in control of the horizontal. No one is in control of the vertical. The blur factor is huge and the picture is oscillating ever upwards to the edge of the screen.
Any possible standards that exist are so all over the place that the guy who sells you the HDTV in the store is extremely unlikely—high-school-level unlikely—to understand pretty much most of it. Oh, he’ll be coached in a few terms, but throw him a stumper and he’ll probably try to sell you a CRT.
Trust me, buying a computer—any computer, Vista or Linux or Mac or Freddy or Alto-Soprano — is far, far easier than doing the HDTV shuffle. But hey, in my case, the journey is the reward.
So let’s start. LCD or Plasma? No one knows. Each one has its benefits. Burn-in on Plasma? That is, trust me, going to be the least of your worries.
Let’s also start with the expectations, the absolutely mind-blowing Cineplex effect you’re going to get as Batman lands in your lap for a feely. Ain’t happenin’, dude. You are not going to get that effect, because you’re going to be watching the Discovery Channel. Or PBS. Or TSN. Or less than a half dozen other channels, none showing movies of any kind. Try “The Truth of Pharaoh’s Tomb.” Try “The Search for the Andes.” “Motor Week.” “Mexico One Plate At a Time.”
Yep, that’s where it stands as of midnight tonight, kids.
Oh, don’t you get me wrong—the picture on those programs will truly blow your rods and cones—but that’s all there is right now, baby. All. There. Is.
So even if you get the finest all-digital HD thingumagoobers worth Granny’s Nigerian-scammed inheritance, you are most, most definitely going to be disappointed. You are going to be cheek-squeezing chums with your cable-support technicians. Every single one of them. Not to mention The Hood Guys, Future Shit, Best Bite, Radio Schmuck, Circuit Shitty . . . well, you will have a fond spot in your heart for every one of them once you have climbed into your HDummer and waved goodbye.
But wait! you screech. I don’t need those channels! I have an upconverting HDMI DVD player! LOTR will kill on that! Well, yes and no. It will certainly kill over watching on a CRT or your computer monitor. But it will not even be close to HD.
See, what these folks have been trying to persuade you is that digital equals HD. Well, let me tell you that that is like comparing a VHS tape to a DVD. HD is light years better than the digital signal that will be issuing forth from your DVD player—if you want figures, about twenty times better. That’s a lot.
The only way you will be able to truly experience HD-class movies is to purchase a Blu-Ray or DVD-HD player and play a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movie in them. And hello, in case you didn’t notice, those makers are squabbling heatedly among themselves and aligning into vast, childish treehouses with club membership cards. Not good for you, O Consumer Fuckwad.
One particular annoyance you’re going to see on your shiny new 42” plasma is “The picture’s funny, Hunter, is it supposed to be like that?”
Yes, Madison, it is supposed to be like that. All over the place, with black bars below and sometimes on the side, or black on top and grey on the sides, or vice-versa, or the picture will be unnaturally stretched, so Lorne Greene looks like Rubberman, or if you fuck with it, Miffy the Pinhead, or even Zoom, Monster from Panandscam. No one except the folks at Discovery HD et. al. seem to have come to grips with how to handle this.
The Holy Grail awaiteth. It is not yet upon us.
My advice? If you were just about to pounce on an HDTV TV (redundant, I know, but a victim of the shell-game acronymery the Electronics folks want us to be mired in), just go ahead and do it.
Because I’m proud to say it: I watched Star Trek before my family got a color television. And this is a whole heck of a lot better than that.
It’s a mess. Not as much as a mess as it was 5 years ago or even two years ago, and thankfully, not as wallet-flattening as buying a used SUV, but it is most definitely a mess.
Thank god I’ve figured it all out over this past two months, and am going to impart to you lucky few this vast knowledge that will save you mountains of Trudeaus (dunno—is he even on a bill?) You folks in the USA don’t deserve any money-saving just because of the outrageous shipping charges on everything I have to buy from you because it’s not available in Canada, the ones that always cancel out any savings I might make by avoiding the GST and brokerage fees. (Just kidding; I'm American too, but your shipping rates still blow.)
Got a few minutes? Pull up your comfy leather chair — you know, the one with the silhouette of the dude getting his hair blasted by speaker blowback — and relax. Have a drink. Have two, or if you just put down some Franklins on some HDTV box or other and are awaiting its arrival, go for broke, open the whole case and call in sick for the rest of the week. You’re gonna need the break.
First of all, no one is in control of the horizontal. No one is in control of the vertical. The blur factor is huge and the picture is oscillating ever upwards to the edge of the screen.
Any possible standards that exist are so all over the place that the guy who sells you the HDTV in the store is extremely unlikely—high-school-level unlikely—to understand pretty much most of it. Oh, he’ll be coached in a few terms, but throw him a stumper and he’ll probably try to sell you a CRT.
Trust me, buying a computer—any computer, Vista or Linux or Mac or Freddy or Alto-Soprano — is far, far easier than doing the HDTV shuffle. But hey, in my case, the journey is the reward.
So let’s start. LCD or Plasma? No one knows. Each one has its benefits. Burn-in on Plasma? That is, trust me, going to be the least of your worries.
Let’s also start with the expectations, the absolutely mind-blowing Cineplex effect you’re going to get as Batman lands in your lap for a feely. Ain’t happenin’, dude. You are not going to get that effect, because you’re going to be watching the Discovery Channel. Or PBS. Or TSN. Or less than a half dozen other channels, none showing movies of any kind. Try “The Truth of Pharaoh’s Tomb.” Try “The Search for the Andes.” “Motor Week.” “Mexico One Plate At a Time.”
Yep, that’s where it stands as of midnight tonight, kids.
Oh, don’t you get me wrong—the picture on those programs will truly blow your rods and cones—but that’s all there is right now, baby. All. There. Is.
So even if you get the finest all-digital HD thingumagoobers worth Granny’s Nigerian-scammed inheritance, you are most, most definitely going to be disappointed. You are going to be cheek-squeezing chums with your cable-support technicians. Every single one of them. Not to mention The Hood Guys, Future Shit, Best Bite, Radio Schmuck, Circuit Shitty . . . well, you will have a fond spot in your heart for every one of them once you have climbed into your HDummer and waved goodbye.
But wait! you screech. I don’t need those channels! I have an upconverting HDMI DVD player! LOTR will kill on that! Well, yes and no. It will certainly kill over watching on a CRT or your computer monitor. But it will not even be close to HD.
See, what these folks have been trying to persuade you is that digital equals HD. Well, let me tell you that that is like comparing a VHS tape to a DVD. HD is light years better than the digital signal that will be issuing forth from your DVD player—if you want figures, about twenty times better. That’s a lot.
The only way you will be able to truly experience HD-class movies is to purchase a Blu-Ray or DVD-HD player and play a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movie in them. And hello, in case you didn’t notice, those makers are squabbling heatedly among themselves and aligning into vast, childish treehouses with club membership cards. Not good for you, O Consumer Fuckwad.
One particular annoyance you’re going to see on your shiny new 42” plasma is “The picture’s funny, Hunter, is it supposed to be like that?”
Yes, Madison, it is supposed to be like that. All over the place, with black bars below and sometimes on the side, or black on top and grey on the sides, or vice-versa, or the picture will be unnaturally stretched, so Lorne Greene looks like Rubberman, or if you fuck with it, Miffy the Pinhead, or even Zoom, Monster from Panandscam. No one except the folks at Discovery HD et. al. seem to have come to grips with how to handle this.
The Holy Grail awaiteth. It is not yet upon us.
My advice? If you were just about to pounce on an HDTV TV (redundant, I know, but a victim of the shell-game acronymery the Electronics folks want us to be mired in), just go ahead and do it.
Because I’m proud to say it: I watched Star Trek before my family got a color television. And this is a whole heck of a lot better than that.
In Tempo Flagrante?
Blogs are great. Aren’t blogs great? What did people do before blogs? Garden? Knit?
Back then, did anyone spend hours and hours of their free time performing an activity, writing reams about it, maybe painting the subject, and then go to the town square and offer copies to strangers at absolutely no charge (okay, not counting rabble-rousers and politicians)?
How do some people find the incredible amounts of time required to, say, produce exquisitely-arranged tableaus of food (while babbling for long lengths of time about the making of it and providing the recipes) for what appears to be no apparent gain except for the murmurs of admiration and nods of “hep-to” agreement on the sagacity of the choices of ingredients from legions of commentator-fans?
Okay, I agree that last was a mouthful, but just what do these people ever get from six hours of intense work except for lots of pats on the back? Will their deathbed speech be, “But I really blogged that Sweet Potato Pie, didn’t I, honey? And your photos were . . . were . . .”
Yes, I myself am probably guilty of such indulgences, but the novelty of spending an entire day working on a 5-minute video quickly wore off, when I viewed the ensuing kitchen disaster and contemplated the 12 messages on my machine. Occasionally, yeah, but three times a week?
That’s a career, for chrissake.
Scrabble, anyone?
Back then, did anyone spend hours and hours of their free time performing an activity, writing reams about it, maybe painting the subject, and then go to the town square and offer copies to strangers at absolutely no charge (okay, not counting rabble-rousers and politicians)?
How do some people find the incredible amounts of time required to, say, produce exquisitely-arranged tableaus of food (while babbling for long lengths of time about the making of it and providing the recipes) for what appears to be no apparent gain except for the murmurs of admiration and nods of “hep-to” agreement on the sagacity of the choices of ingredients from legions of commentator-fans?
Okay, I agree that last was a mouthful, but just what do these people ever get from six hours of intense work except for lots of pats on the back? Will their deathbed speech be, “But I really blogged that Sweet Potato Pie, didn’t I, honey? And your photos were . . . were . . .”
Yes, I myself am probably guilty of such indulgences, but the novelty of spending an entire day working on a 5-minute video quickly wore off, when I viewed the ensuing kitchen disaster and contemplated the 12 messages on my machine. Occasionally, yeah, but three times a week?
That’s a career, for chrissake.
Scrabble, anyone?
Thursday, March 8, 2007
An Historical Day
I actually found two bottles of Kewpie Japanese mayonnaise at my Cote-des-Neiges Metro.
Ten years ago, you couldn't find it outside Japan.
At Metro. Go figure. I didn't mention it in the ChefNick Challenge because back then, you'd have had an easier time persuading me an astronaut wore diapers.
Ten years ago, you couldn't find it outside Japan.
At Metro. Go figure. I didn't mention it in the ChefNick Challenge because back then, you'd have had an easier time persuading me an astronaut wore diapers.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
The Steak
As Ingrid Leung pointed out, I raved about Peter Luger's steak, but didn't post a pic.
To tell the truth, I was mightily distracted at the time, in between martinis, bacon and tomatoes, so I wasn't properly diligent about taking a great photo--just busy eating the steak!
It didn't help that it was a steak for two, so had to be divided first . . . but trust me, it was MMM-MM good! This pic does not do it justice.
To tell the truth, I was mightily distracted at the time, in between martinis, bacon and tomatoes, so I wasn't properly diligent about taking a great photo--just busy eating the steak!
It didn't help that it was a steak for two, so had to be divided first . . . but trust me, it was MMM-MM good! This pic does not do it justice.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
A Slice of Heaven
How can I adequately describe New York? When I lived here as a child, I found it marvelous, magical, and frustrating. Today, I find it marvelous, magical and frustrating.
As a child, I didn’t go out to restaurants. More on that in a minute.
But yesterday I had to make a couple of choices: how best to arrange my day around several cab rides? It didn’t help that all the weather sources available were predicting the same thing: heavy rain.
It seems that weathermen are scarcely better than those who pull the handles of VLTs. The morning was cloudy, but the afternoon was spotless. And herein lies a tale.
New York is great. Downtown is amazing. But something you will soon find is that no matter how sunny it is in the sky, you will almost never see the sun. Everything is perpetually in shadow. It’s bizarre, to say the least. You can walk twenty blocks and never see the sun in a cloudless sky.
Once I got past that, I hopped a cab to where I used to live, on E. 76th St. and York. Everything was shrunken from what I remembered (I was ten.) Gentrified. There was a doorman at the building in which I used to live. There were no doormen when I was a kid.
Then, it was Ground Zero. Somehow, had to do that. To add to the list of weirdities, I found myself discussing 9/11 with a Chadian taxi dude who was in Darfur on 9/11. In New Yorkese.
The site itself was disappointing—nothing really to see, just a vast construction zone. But the cabbie brought it all home as he pointed down to the end of a large gap between a bunch of buildings: “See where all that empty space is? That’s where the World Trade Center used to be.”
And then, the crowning glory: Luzzo’s. It is rarely given to this misbegotten scribbler’s soul to experience a piece of heaven, but it was experienced on this night. If I had the money to expend on a plane ticket a day, it would be from Montreal to New York, and Luzzo’s every night onwards for the rest of my days.
We were a party of 8, but it seemed like a party for 200. None of us was from New York. None of us had ever eaten at Luzzo’s. But suddenly, Matteo, our server, was quickly our new best friend (and to the ladies, their new eye magnet.)
I quickly glommed onto the Pizza Dudes, a trio of hard-working men who were just steps from our table, whirling huge discs of flour and water and shoving things into furnaces.
When our first pizza came out—the Martha, with bufalo mozzarella, truffles and prosciutto, the entire table fell silent. After two or three bites, the murmurs were unanimous: this was the best pizza we had eaten in our entire lives. Unanimous. It was on a level several orders of magnitude above anything I have ever eaten. All by these three young dudes behind the counter (see video to follow.)
Crispy. Succulent. Cheesy. Burnt/not burnt. Buttery. Smoky. Chunky. Spicy/not spicy. Tomatoey. Something . . . as one very happy female member of our crowd mentioned, she would go down on her knees for the creator of this pie, and not for the reasons you would assume. And she willingly confided this to me, a perfect stranger until a half hour before.
And this was before we had the Arugula (tomato, mozzarella, prosciutto, shaved parmiggiano cheese, arugula.) I swear, I will never look at this humble green the same way again.
I tried to give the pizza men a twenty in lieu of a nice bottle of wine (they insisted they couldn’t drink on duty) and they finally accepted it. I only wish that that twenty could pay for the supreme pizza knowledge that those three guys hold within their skulls. If it were just a money issue, it would have been thousands.
The memory of those pies lies inexorably entwined within the dendrites and axons in my brain. I will never have another pizza that approaches this until I again sit down at a table in Luzzo’s.
But that’s just my opinion.
Back to Montreal today, and a checkin bag full of memories.
As a child, I didn’t go out to restaurants. More on that in a minute.
But yesterday I had to make a couple of choices: how best to arrange my day around several cab rides? It didn’t help that all the weather sources available were predicting the same thing: heavy rain.
It seems that weathermen are scarcely better than those who pull the handles of VLTs. The morning was cloudy, but the afternoon was spotless. And herein lies a tale.
New York is great. Downtown is amazing. But something you will soon find is that no matter how sunny it is in the sky, you will almost never see the sun. Everything is perpetually in shadow. It’s bizarre, to say the least. You can walk twenty blocks and never see the sun in a cloudless sky.
Once I got past that, I hopped a cab to where I used to live, on E. 76th St. and York. Everything was shrunken from what I remembered (I was ten.) Gentrified. There was a doorman at the building in which I used to live. There were no doormen when I was a kid.
Then, it was Ground Zero. Somehow, had to do that. To add to the list of weirdities, I found myself discussing 9/11 with a Chadian taxi dude who was in Darfur on 9/11. In New Yorkese.
The site itself was disappointing—nothing really to see, just a vast construction zone. But the cabbie brought it all home as he pointed down to the end of a large gap between a bunch of buildings: “See where all that empty space is? That’s where the World Trade Center used to be.”
And then, the crowning glory: Luzzo’s. It is rarely given to this misbegotten scribbler’s soul to experience a piece of heaven, but it was experienced on this night. If I had the money to expend on a plane ticket a day, it would be from Montreal to New York, and Luzzo’s every night onwards for the rest of my days.
We were a party of 8, but it seemed like a party for 200. None of us was from New York. None of us had ever eaten at Luzzo’s. But suddenly, Matteo, our server, was quickly our new best friend (and to the ladies, their new eye magnet.)
I quickly glommed onto the Pizza Dudes, a trio of hard-working men who were just steps from our table, whirling huge discs of flour and water and shoving things into furnaces.
When our first pizza came out—the Martha, with bufalo mozzarella, truffles and prosciutto, the entire table fell silent. After two or three bites, the murmurs were unanimous: this was the best pizza we had eaten in our entire lives. Unanimous. It was on a level several orders of magnitude above anything I have ever eaten. All by these three young dudes behind the counter (see video to follow.)
Crispy. Succulent. Cheesy. Burnt/not burnt. Buttery. Smoky. Chunky. Spicy/not spicy. Tomatoey. Something . . . as one very happy female member of our crowd mentioned, she would go down on her knees for the creator of this pie, and not for the reasons you would assume. And she willingly confided this to me, a perfect stranger until a half hour before.
And this was before we had the Arugula (tomato, mozzarella, prosciutto, shaved parmiggiano cheese, arugula.) I swear, I will never look at this humble green the same way again.
I tried to give the pizza men a twenty in lieu of a nice bottle of wine (they insisted they couldn’t drink on duty) and they finally accepted it. I only wish that that twenty could pay for the supreme pizza knowledge that those three guys hold within their skulls. If it were just a money issue, it would have been thousands.
The memory of those pies lies inexorably entwined within the dendrites and axons in my brain. I will never have another pizza that approaches this until I again sit down at a table in Luzzo’s.
But that’s just my opinion.
Back to Montreal today, and a checkin bag full of memories.
Friday, March 2, 2007
On the road #1
Best Western Convention Center, 522 W. 38th St., Room 605, 8:30 a.m.
The clock radio just barked into life, shouting something in Chinese. I'm hooked to the Internet with a balky Ethernet cable. It's grey and nasty outside the room and I can hear denizens wandering in the corridor outside.
Manhattan is happenin'! All the way through our drive from Newark airport--a nasty one-hour job through rush hour ending in the Lincoln tunnel--I marvelled at all the New Yawk signposts. Hoboken . . . Frankie!!!!! Empire State Building poking through everything, sadly on its own once more.
Hotel: Fanfuckingtastic! Very Japanese, approaching one of those micro-rooms for businessmen. Frill-less (viz: Ethernet cord) but ideal for a road warrior like moi.
Yesterday: priceless. Cab drivers in this city should each have their own reality show. The guy who took us from here to Peter Luger in Brooklyn was at turns surly, friendly, accommodating, and finally, expansive--an Egyptian bundle of Manhattanness that warmed the cockles of this cynic's heart. Once he heard us speak French, he realized we weren't the insects of the tourist world, and all his stories of learning French came tumbling forth.
And, Peter. Luger.
Peter,
Luger.
Peterluger.
When Indiana Jones finds the Holy Grail, there's a big production with Nazis and whirling Visitations from Above plunging down and bad guys' shrieking skulls and lots of noise.
This was Peter Luger. The Holy Grail!
I can honestly say I can now die, content. My last breath will be "I . . . went . . . to . . . Peter Luger." (Note: This properly belongs on my steak blog, but I'm so amped that it will be here first; when I get home and analyze the photos/video, I will post it there.)
Forget everything you've heard about Peter Luger, and start from scratch. At 7:30 last evening, it was an insane zoo.
My tiny boy was dwarfed by legions of men--yes, mostly men--swarming the entranceway and bar area, with waiters bustling through carrying trays of this and that, murmuring Excuse-Me s at every turn, but never was he in danger of being trampled. A more gentle crowd of gentlemen I have yet to encounter.
And oh gods, where should I start? Should I start at the perfect Martini (actually a Gibson, issued with nary a hairy eyebrow) that sent electric shudders of recognition for what it was: the preferred nectar of superior beings, with the exact combination of gin and vermouth, fairy-dusted with miniature orbs of holy cocktail onions? Exquisiteness is not a word that does this glass of magic justice. However, it was like being felled by a silver sledgehammer. On version 2.0, I was reluctantly forced to stop drinking for fear of ending up among the legs of my companions.
Then: bacon. The Bacon. The Exquisite Bacon-not-Bacon. And the Tomatoes. (Had to try these. "Daddy, these are the biggest tomatoes I've ever seen!" Yes, son, they were. Six inches across, I'd warrant. And every angstrom a taste treat.)
The bacon was superlative: meaty, juicy, thick and ultralounge. I'm sorry, there are no ordinary adjectives to describe it.
Then, the steak. The steak for two, medium rare, and the steak for two, medium. Of course, I cough in the plate of those who prefer their steak anything more than just sliced off the cow, but at Peter Luger, it doesn't matter. You are going to get The Perfect Steak.
And perfect it was. Oh, the regret! That I don't have a refrigerator to keep the leavings in. If ever there were a celestial doggy bag, this would have been it.
The sundae . . . I would go on, at length about the magnificence of this creation, but at that point the second martini kicks in and everything becomes somewhat hazy. I think I had an Irish coffee--that should tell you everything about the sundae. But creamy, world-class gooiness is what remains on the myelin sheaths of my dendrites this a.m.
And the famous surly waiters? Gimme a fuckin break. Our main guy almost went through hoops to give us a great experience, grabbing my SLR and video cameras at various points in the evening to document this historic event. Everyone at Peter Luger was a total joy to deal with--please toss the myths.
So, Holy Grail #1 accomplished. Where to now? Maybe the ultimate burger quest . . . trouble is, if I have an ultimate burger for lunch, will it leave the proper amount of room for Luzzo's?
The clock radio just barked into life, shouting something in Chinese. I'm hooked to the Internet with a balky Ethernet cable. It's grey and nasty outside the room and I can hear denizens wandering in the corridor outside.
Manhattan is happenin'! All the way through our drive from Newark airport--a nasty one-hour job through rush hour ending in the Lincoln tunnel--I marvelled at all the New Yawk signposts. Hoboken . . . Frankie!!!!! Empire State Building poking through everything, sadly on its own once more.
Hotel: Fanfuckingtastic! Very Japanese, approaching one of those micro-rooms for businessmen. Frill-less (viz: Ethernet cord) but ideal for a road warrior like moi.
Yesterday: priceless. Cab drivers in this city should each have their own reality show. The guy who took us from here to Peter Luger in Brooklyn was at turns surly, friendly, accommodating, and finally, expansive--an Egyptian bundle of Manhattanness that warmed the cockles of this cynic's heart. Once he heard us speak French, he realized we weren't the insects of the tourist world, and all his stories of learning French came tumbling forth.
And, Peter. Luger.
Peter,
Luger.
Peterluger.
When Indiana Jones finds the Holy Grail, there's a big production with Nazis and whirling Visitations from Above plunging down and bad guys' shrieking skulls and lots of noise.
This was Peter Luger. The Holy Grail!
I can honestly say I can now die, content. My last breath will be "I . . . went . . . to . . . Peter Luger." (Note: This properly belongs on my steak blog, but I'm so amped that it will be here first; when I get home and analyze the photos/video, I will post it there.)
Forget everything you've heard about Peter Luger, and start from scratch. At 7:30 last evening, it was an insane zoo.
My tiny boy was dwarfed by legions of men--yes, mostly men--swarming the entranceway and bar area, with waiters bustling through carrying trays of this and that, murmuring Excuse-Me s at every turn, but never was he in danger of being trampled. A more gentle crowd of gentlemen I have yet to encounter.
And oh gods, where should I start? Should I start at the perfect Martini (actually a Gibson, issued with nary a hairy eyebrow) that sent electric shudders of recognition for what it was: the preferred nectar of superior beings, with the exact combination of gin and vermouth, fairy-dusted with miniature orbs of holy cocktail onions? Exquisiteness is not a word that does this glass of magic justice. However, it was like being felled by a silver sledgehammer. On version 2.0, I was reluctantly forced to stop drinking for fear of ending up among the legs of my companions.
Then: bacon. The Bacon. The Exquisite Bacon-not-Bacon. And the Tomatoes. (Had to try these. "Daddy, these are the biggest tomatoes I've ever seen!" Yes, son, they were. Six inches across, I'd warrant. And every angstrom a taste treat.)
The bacon was superlative: meaty, juicy, thick and ultralounge. I'm sorry, there are no ordinary adjectives to describe it.
Then, the steak. The steak for two, medium rare, and the steak for two, medium. Of course, I cough in the plate of those who prefer their steak anything more than just sliced off the cow, but at Peter Luger, it doesn't matter. You are going to get The Perfect Steak.
And perfect it was. Oh, the regret! That I don't have a refrigerator to keep the leavings in. If ever there were a celestial doggy bag, this would have been it.
The sundae . . . I would go on, at length about the magnificence of this creation, but at that point the second martini kicks in and everything becomes somewhat hazy. I think I had an Irish coffee--that should tell you everything about the sundae. But creamy, world-class gooiness is what remains on the myelin sheaths of my dendrites this a.m.
And the famous surly waiters? Gimme a fuckin break. Our main guy almost went through hoops to give us a great experience, grabbing my SLR and video cameras at various points in the evening to document this historic event. Everyone at Peter Luger was a total joy to deal with--please toss the myths.
So, Holy Grail #1 accomplished. Where to now? Maybe the ultimate burger quest . . . trouble is, if I have an ultimate burger for lunch, will it leave the proper amount of room for Luzzo's?