Beef before Tango!

I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Buenos Aires recently. Our guide, German, (the ‘G’ is pronounced like a hard ‘H’) was fantastic. He allowed us to discover a great city in the little time we were there and booked us in to see an amazing Tango show at Piazzolla Tango.

The Tango, he reminded us, is not indigenous to the whole of Argentina but a product of the city of Buenos Aires, where it grew up out of the slums. Originally performed by men only, as women were not allowed to be so physically close, it, the dance and the music, became a conduit through which immigrants of different races and backgrounds could express themselves as one. It was only much later, once it had become a hit in Paris, that it was accepted by the upper classes as late as 1940 (??) and recognized as an art form.

On the history of the city and the nation, German was also very knowledgeable as he tried to piece together what seems to have been a somewhat twisted, complicated and often brutal past, reflected in the architecture of the city, the obvious divide between rich and poor and the fascinating stories behind some of the families whose tombs grace the Recoleta Cemetery, including Evita’s (interestingly enough she is buried here but her husband President Peron is not!)

When it came to food though, there wasn’t much to say except of course Beef!!! According to our guide, unlike Brazil or Mexico, Argentina does not have much of a national cuisine. Most of the restaurants that we saw were Italian and that is the cuisine that has been embraced by Argentineans. That’s when you’re not eating Beef!

Not surprisingly then, our first dinner in Buenos Aires was Beef! We arrived at the restaurant at 8pm, 3 hours before any self respecting Argentinean would, as we had our Tango show to go to later (it started at 10.15pm – there was one suggestion that we should be more normal and eat after the show!).

Cabanas Las Lilas is one of the more famous steak restaurants ‘Parrillas’ in the Puerto Madero district. Once home to Buenos Aires’ second harbor, this area is now a renovated dockside with 19^th warehouses turned in to restaurants, shops and expensive condos. Here it’s all about the beef. Walking towards our table we can see straight in to the kitchen through the glass windows that separate us from a roaring wood fired grill that is covered with all imaginable cuts, rib-eye, rump, skirt, sirloin, tenderloin, T-bone and a strange looking one that looks more like a lethal weapon (Imagine a lamb chop, on the bone but 6 times as big!). This it turns out is the house special ‘Las Lilas’ cut!

The view from our table on the terrace is all about people watching. The menu is all about the grill and the beef! I’m delighted to also see sweetbreads, liver and kidneys – my friends are not! The wine list is all about reminding us what a great wine producing country Argentina is with over 200 wines on offer!

It’s Crostini (see the Italian influence) for everyone else and kidneys for me to start. Then we tuck in to our order of beef: a rib-eye, tenderloin and a house special – all Medium Rare as per the Maitre D’H recommendation with side orders of fluffy potatoes and mixed vegetables. This we’ve decided to wash down with a bottle of a 2003 Mendoza Malbec.

Horrors of horrors!!! The lethal weapon is overcooked! Medium, bordering on the well-done – and the real shame is that this piece of meat is as tough as leather once it’s overcooked. A quick question to the waiter – “Is this Medium Rare?” elicits a flurry of activity. There is absolutely no argument, the offending weapon is removed and a second bottle of wine is brought to the table. I enjoy a taste of everyone else’s meal as I wait for the back up artillery to appear. Sure enough, just as everyone else is finishing their meal a new and improved version is set in front of me amidst profuse apologies – there’s no question as to where the fault lies here (and for a change in Argentina it’s not with the Brits!).

So far the situation has been dealt with very graciously – now in my book they surpass themselves and show that they are extremely service oriented. As I dig in to my steak they bring out a completely new set of vegetables and fluffy potatoes, not just for me, but for the whole table so that my dining companions can also have something to eat instead of just watching me – very impressive.

The meat is delicious and the whole Michael Pollan grass-fed/forced-fed/whatever-fed debate tangos through my mind – briefly – before I tuck in to another piece and reluctantly share some with my friends. Tonight is a night to enjoy a great piece of meat, we'll leave the dancing to the professionals - and what a show it turns out to be!

The Perfect Gift?

There are some people who are easy to buy for during the holidays. Part of the challenge is just finding something that they’ll enjoy, the real trick though is to make sure that you can renew this gift every year!! My mother now gets flowers and a subscription to ‘The Week’ delivered every month, my brother and sister 3 bottles of wine each month. These all seem very popular and have made holiday shopping that much simpler, although it’s still nice to get them some other little thing to keep the element of surprise!

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have found that perfect gift for me. They’re so pleased to have found this that they’ve forced me to swear on my favorite Espresso machine that I’ll never jump the gun and get this for myself.

It’s not the Michelin guide or the Zagat survey, which would make perfect gifts for me except that they are now published in October and no one could get me to wait till December for my copies. There’s a whole blog waiting to be written there as to why Zagat and consequently Michelin (the newer competition - in New York that is!) choose to publish in October - I seem to remember that after 9/11 Zagat bought its publishing date forward from November to October and that seems to have stuck, but otherwise I’m baffled why they don’t publish closer to the year which they are supposed to represent – I’m sure there’s an easy explanation.

No this is the “Best Food Writing” compilation that has been coming out annually since 2000 and is edited by Holly Hughes. For all I know this may also be published in October but this one I can wait for!

For anyone who’s interested in the food industry this is a must have – leave the research and the tedious sorting through all that is written on, about or around food to someone else and enjoy a great collection of food writing.

I haven’t read all the articles yet, but it’s well laid out so that you can go to one section and read articles on the restaurant business, including a hilarious piece by Dan Barber where they mistakenly identify a certain food critic, or you can go to other sections to delve into the whole localphile movement, another for the origination of our food, yet another for the economics of the industry or just the importance that food should/does/did play in our lives.

In the ‘Dining Around’ section there are some great articles on dining outside of the US, including a trip by Calvin Trillin to the Hawker Centres in Singapore that bring the old street sellers into a sanitary environment where the most amazing street food can be tasted - safely! - (it’ll make you want to book your air ticket tomorrow!)

My favorite article though has to be “New Day, New Devon” by Raphael Kadushin. As a Brit, from Devon no less, who is somewhat used to having my country’s cooking prowess unfairly maligned, this piece is a breath of fresh air and really does reflect the culinary revolution that has taken place in the UK. Interestingly enough it is the same addiction with locally sourced produce, naturally reared meat and fish and seasonal freshness that we find in the US that is responsible for this interest by some of the UK’s greatest chefs to move away from the cities to the more traditional pubs and hotels in the countryside.

Which brings me to my only peeve with this collection of articles. It’s a little bit like the World Series – if this is the ‘Best Food Writing 2008’ where are the other countries’ authors represented? I know, a little pedantic, but still, in the spirit of the more modest and globally integrated atmosphere that we will hopefully soon be embracing and fostering, perhaps we should call this ‘Best U.S. Food Writing 2008’! Meantime – I’m looking forward to digesting this collection over the next few months, and will keep it with all my other back copies to occasionally reference or just pick up for a quick, entertaining read, as I longingly look at my espresso machine waiting for the next year to arrive!

Sugar - cubed or tubed?

Today we finalized a project that we've been working on for a while.

In the past, we've always served the raw cane sugar lumps with coffee. ('la Peruche'), however, we recently identified that what was intended as an upmarket offering was in fact an expensive, time consuming and potentially unsanitory one!

The expense isn't only in the product itself but also in the fact that every time a customer touches the stuff, it has to be thrown away and every day sugar bowls need to be filled anew. Customers of my mother's generation use their teaspoon to take sugar out of the bowl, others tend to use their hands! - enough said.

So one solution was to put lumps on the saucer (tricky at brunch when we use mugs), but this actually turned out to be psychologically worse for the customer - someone must have touched that sugar for it to be on the spoon!

So we decided on the individually wrapped sugar tubes. I know potentially less green, although with the saving in waste, delivery and fancy full color cardboard packaging, not that far off, but definitely an opportunity to further brand our product and to reflect our commitment to hygiene and cost awareness. This should also have an additional benefit by impacting our crew's attitude towards these two issues - costs & hygiene

We've already had samples of the sugar and quotes, so now all we have to do is order it! - will keep you posted.

Goodbye!

One of our crew has just left to pursue a master's degree in Colorado. He will specialize in all that is vocal. One day we hope that he will have his own voice clinic and be working with household names. Whether he'll remember us or not remains to be seen (or heard!). Our Hollywood actor still does, as does our artist who is about to have his first show in a New York gallery, but will still come back to help us with our holiday decorations this December.

Our voice expert is leaving New York after 8 years, having arrived here aged 22 and he reminds me of so many of the great people that have worked with us. It's seldom in New York that we find front of house crew whose ambition it is to remain in the restaurant industry. We do have a few but most join this industry because it helps them to make money whilst pursuing other ambitions such as acting, singing, creating art etc.. Sometimes it gets in their way as they become dependent on their tips and choose to live a certain "industry" lifestyle that can be fun, fast and furious but also debilitating, destructive and dark (literally as most of it takes place at night!). As a result they end up going to work, partying and sleeping and having very little time to pursue their own ambitions, which in turn results in frustration, anger and blame (my job is keeping me from my career type of thing!)

Most will find a happy medium and along the way, hopefully, they will pick up some useful lessons from our industry. One of the major ones are tolerance and humility. I'm always interested when I hear a server complain, quite justifiably, about how a customer has talked down to them or been condescending. That sort of behavior is of course despicable. However in the same sentence a server will often also imply - "they think I'm just a waiter, but I'm only doing this so that I can pursue a real career" - hmmmmm! - bet the career waiters (like me!) and kitchen crew love that one!

Another great lesson is in being sociable and disciplined. The restaurant world is often the first world someone comes in to having left home and come to live in the big city to pursue their dream. Hence the restaurant becomes the new family. But this family is different - it's one where you have to get on with each other, or at least pretend to, where you don't necessarily get your own way, where you have to earn respect and where your performance impacts everyone else and will be judged by others accordingly - in other words this is a job and unlike in a family you can be asked to leave!

Working on the floor in a restaurant is also a great opportunity for developing selling skills which can then be applied to other aspects of life. This ones a bit trickier though, as restaurants differ in the way that they sell to their customers, as do bars, depending on the type of clientele, however, the basics are the same - how can you identify and satisfy your customer's needs within the framework of your business. This doesn't always mean that you can do exactly what they want but you learn to handle things in a way that keeps them loyal to your business.

So, all in all the restaurant isn't a bad place to learn some of the basics that will help you in a future life and/or career. Of course, there are also a few negative patterns of behavior that can be picked up in this as in any other environment, but we won't go in to that here.

Hopefully our voice expert, together with all the others who pass through our world will feel the same as I do and even if they don't remember the specifics, will think back to this time in their life as a productive and useful one.

How can Cognac be a Fine Champagne?

How can a Cognac be a fine Champagne? - You may well ask - as did one of our customers the other day.

Let's get a few things straight here whilst confusing the hell out of everyone - it's a little bit like the famous tea towel that describes the very English game of cricket

You have two sides,

one out in the field and one in.

Each man that's in the side that's in

goes out, and when he's out he comes in,

and the next man goes in until he's out.

When they are all out, the side that's out

comes in, and the side that's been in goes

out ...

In the case of Cognac and champagne you have 2 very different drinks, although they are both made from grapes (ironically Champagne is partially made from a red grape, pinot noir, whilst Cognac is solely made from white, colombard, folle blanche and ugny blanc!).

One is a fermented grape juice (Champagne), the other is fermented and then distilled (twice in the case of Cognac, though this is not true of all brandies).

Champagne is a sparkling wine but not all sparkling wines are Champagne as they have to come from a specific area in France and be made in a particular way to be called Champagne. Cognac is a brandy (from the German Brandwein meaning burnt wine - ie distilled) but not all brandies are Cognacs as they have to come from the Cognac area of France and be made a specific way to be called Cognac.

All clear so far? Good - because there's more! So we now know that Cognac is a Brandy and Champagne a sparkling wine - so how come when I look at my bottle of Courvoisier VSOP it says that it is a "Fine Champagne"?

Given the English nature of V.S.O.P. (which stands for "very special old pale") you would be quite justified in thinking that "Fine Champagne" was also English, but it's not. In this case it's French and it is refering to a blend of grapes from a small growing area in France which is in the heart of the Cognac growing region and is made up of 2 smaller areas "Grande Champagne" and "Petite Champagne". In order to qualify for this denomination, 50% of the grapes have to come from the Grande Champagne area. Of the 6 different growing areas in the Cognac region these are at the centre and considered the best - most mid-range Cognacs are made from grapes from these 2 areas whilst the older, more expensive Cognac blends tend to be solely from the "Grande Champagne" (an area of aproximately 80,000 acres, of which 17% is planted with vines) where the "terroir" (soil condition) is considered the best.

So when you see Fine Champagne on the label it means that the grapes used to make the Cognac you're about to drink come from the centre of the Cognac area, it has nothing to do with the sparkling wine known as Champagne. If you see Grande Champagne on the label the same applies, but this time 100% of the grapes are from that tiny area at the core of the Cognac area. Confusingly you can also get "Grande Fine Champagne" and "Petite Fine Champagne" - just knock out the "fine" to get where they come from.

See - simple!

Sit in my lap?

Why would it matter where I sit? Well normally it doesn't.

Believe me, I'm not one of those who assumes that I can choose any table I like when I step into a restaurant early and there seem to be lots of empty places. I know it would be great if the two of us could sit at that lovely round top in the window that's laid up for 6 but that's not going to happen - or if it does, I doubt this restaurant will be here in a year! Whether you like it or not restaurants have a finite number of tables and they need to 'turn' them if they're going to survive.

Just occasionally though I have to say something. It happened a few days back when I went to quite a casual Brasserie for lunch where they don't accept reservations. Somehow I ended up in what felt like their broom closet. I was squashed against a pillar, close to the bar, that blocked my view of the 5 or 6 empty (2 top) tables by the windows. A foot to my right was one of only two other customers engaged in a fun relationship with her I-pod. Meanwhile over my left shoulder I could feel the tickle of what turned out to be the dining out section of the NYT as my fellow diner turned the page. This gentleman, perched on a stool at the bar stool, was none too happy when I swatted his newspaper a couple of times, suspecting a flying insect!

So, I asked if I could move to one of the tables in the window. Of course I was way too distracted watching the waiter seat the next few groups of people to take advantage of my window view, and I couldn't help noticing that the next 2 tables also both asked to be moved! When this happens I normally pride myself in being able to understand what's going on, but this one got me - either the host was just having a bad day or more likely (s)he'd been told to fill up someone's section.

Le Beaujolais Nouveau va arriver - in plastic bottles!!

I had a great conversation the other night with some guests over the whole Beaujolais Nouveau thing. We all agreed that it had done little to promote those great Beaujolais such as Brouilly, Fleurie, Moulin a Vent etc., but it had put Beaujolais on the map for good or for bad!

Some time in the 1980s what had traditionally been a local passion and interest in what the latest production of the very young Beaujolais table wine would taste like, turned in to a world-wide marketing phenomenon, no doubt encouraged by some local wine marketing consortium.

The goal I'm sure was to created a larger demand for and a greater awareness of Beaujolais, which at that time was no doubt lagging behind other French wine growing areas, like Bordeaux, Rhone and Burgundy. Although Beaujolais is actually in the southern extremities of Burgundy, it does make sense to separate it as the dominant red grape here is Gamay as opposed to the Pinot Noir of the rest of Burgundy. As early as 1395 Phillip the Bold's famous decree outlawing the Gamay grape from being grown in the then duchy of Burgundy made sure of this separation.

So a competition was set up which involved getting the latest Beaujolais Nouveau wines to the furthest reaches in the world, as fast as possible - a wine marathon of sorts. This led to some great stunts involving airplanes, concord, helicopters, submarines, rickshaws, bionic people etc.. And it worked, suddenly everyone was talking about "Le Beaujolais Nouveau" and the phrase "le Beaujolais est arrive" entered into every wino's vocabulary. Soon 50% of the region's wine production was crushed, fermented, bottled, labelled, shipped and drunk within 3 months of being picked!!!

In 1985 the rules changed so that the Beaujolais Nouveau could be released no sooner than the third Thursday in the month of November (it used to be 15th November) - just in time for the weekend!!

This year will be no different. Sure enough at 1 minute past midnight on Thursday 20th November 2008, the starting gun will sound in towns and villages like Beaujeu and millions of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau will start their race towards the 4 corners of the world.

We'll get our Beaujolais Nouveau on Friday 21st - this year though it will be in plastic bottles!!!!

The problem is that shipping or rather plane delivery is proving too expensive - a discrepancy is beginning to open between quality, price and novelty. As the cost of a case delivered by plane goes to $140, more and more outlets are willing to wait for the ship delivery which will only cost $105, but then what's the point in featuring the wine since the whole idea of being one of the first to serve it will be lost and maybe there are some better bargains out there at that price!

So some smart George will bottle his Beaujolais Nouveau in plastic to keep the shipping costs down. What will these marketing geniuses think of next? It worked with me - I never usually buy the stuff but this year, I ordered a case before the grapes had even been picked - just out of curiosity!