# Awesome restaurant review **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 21, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849 "2011-07-21T14:18:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/41 "2011-07-26T01:16:16Z")
> [@lukeinva](#): > > Bolognese is supposed to be made with beef, veal and pork. Added to a carmelized mirapoix of celery, carrot and onion. Finished with cream. The sauce is a specialty from Bologna and [dates back to the 15th century.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolognese_sauce) Spaghoots with red gravy it ain’t. Well, your cite says: > [@](#): > > The traditional recipe, registered in 1982 by the Bolognese delegation of Accademia Italiana della Cucina, confines the ingredients to beef, pancetta, onions, tomato paste, meat broth, white wine, and milk or cream. It’s not a red sauce, it is certainly supposed to be focused on the meat, but it’s not necessarily supposed to be finished with cream. Tomato is a newer addition, of course, being a New World fruit, but that doesn’t make it any less “authentic.” Also, read more [here.](http://culinariaitalia.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/ragu-alla-bolognese-authentic-recipe/) That’s as “authentic” as you’re going to get. Plus, [here is a very detailed description](http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=3147#3147) of bolognese on a message board by an food historian (who is of Italian extraction) that goes into all the ins and outs of bolognese, as well as [this follow-up post](http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5390) with a few more pointers and some pictures. (Also, note the amount of ragú in his plated dish.) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/42 "2011-07-26T02:30:52Z")
My favorite recent restaurant review is [this one](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/dining/reviews/11rest.html) for the New York restaurant Ago. Now, the owners include the chef Agostino Sciandri and the actor Robert DeNiro. They already owned a highly rated restaurant of the same name in Los Angeles. And DeNiro owns several other highly rated restaurants with other people. My point being that they are not amateurs. Anyhow, the review I linked to starts with the bartender spilling wine all over a member of the reviewer’s dining party. Then, they wait 52 minutes past their reservation time to be seated at a table. And then, after a rack of lamb is ordered, they’re served a veal chop (although the server describes it as “the special rack-of-lamb veal chop”). I’d love to have been in the room when the owners read the review. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/43 "2011-07-26T02:34:03Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Well, your cite says: > > It’s not a red sauce, it is certainly supposed to be focused on the meat, but it’s not necessarily supposed to be finished with cream. Tomato is a newer addition, of course, being a New World fruit, but that doesn’t make it any less “authentic.” > > Also, read more [here.](http://culinariaitalia.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/ragu-alla-bolognese-authentic-recipe/) That’s as “authentic” as you’re going to get. > > Plus, [here is a very detailed description](http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=3147#3147) of bolognese on a message board by an food historian (who is of Italian extraction) that goes into all the ins and outs of bolognese, as well as [this follow-up post](http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5390) with a few more pointers and some pictures. (Also, note the amount of ragú in his plated dish.) Well, in my opinion anyone that were to declare pretty much any traditional recipe as _the_ one would almost certainly be full of it. Traditional cooking is almost always best prepared at home, and usually each home has its own traditions and recipes. I doubt any two mammas cook Bolognesa the same way. So, I guess you are _both_ right in a way. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/44 "2011-07-26T03:05:29Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > Well, in my opinion anyone that were to declare pretty much any traditional recipe as _the_ one would almost certainly be full of it. Traditional cooking is almost always best prepared at home, and usually each home has its own traditions and recipes. I doubt any two mammas cook Bolognesa the same way. > > So, I guess you are _both_ right in a way. 🙂 No, I am not at all saying there is one authentic recipe, hence my quotes around “authentic.” However, there is _an_ official recipe, as designated by the Bolognese delegation of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, which is about as close as you can possibly get to an agreement on what bolognese is and isn’t. Of course traditional cooking varies. But there are basic guidelines under which a recipe lives, before it becomes another recipe and no longer _ragú alla bolognese_. To quote the food historian in the second thread I linked to: > [@](#): > > As with virtually all famous Italian dishes which have a clear local origin but have subsequently been accepted into the national cuisine (insofar as it exists), there is a certain amount of variation in the recipe that one encounters-- and that’s true even amongst the Bolognesi themselves. But that said, there are also well-known notions of what the limits of such variation are. To draw an analogy to another dish discussed recently in these terms on [Chowhound], alla Matriciana may have onion, may not, may use white wine, may not, but in Italy it never has garlic. I am not saying **lukeinva** ’s recipe is wrong. Not at all. It sounds like a bolognese to me. I was actually objecting to the “supposed to” part of his post saying that it’s supposed to have veal and pork and be finished with cream, which is not necessarily true, and is in fact not part of the “official” ragu alla Bolognese recipe as above. A standard bolognese is basically modeled after the recipe listed. It may have cream, it may not. It may have some finely chopped liver, it may not. Milk may or may not be used. White wine is generally preferred, although red will do. Garlic is generally absent (I’ve actually never seen an Italian recipe for Bolognese with garlic. Onions only.) It generally does not contain herbs, fresh or dried. Whatever bolognese is, **lukeinva** and I agree that it is _not_ just any old tomato-based meat sauce, but rather a specific meat sauce that may or may not contain some tomato product in it, but _meat_ is the centerpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/45 "2011-07-26T10:37:50Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > George Melly? I don’t think that it was G.M. I actually Wiki’d it with no joy. I keep thinking Humphrey Littleton, but I don’t think that thats right either. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/46 "2011-07-26T11:28:42Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The fact that Thomas Keller likes this place is reason enough for me to visit it, despite the New York Times review. Thomas Keller talks about sitting there where all those great people had sat before him, but, hell, I’d go there just to sit in a restaurant that Thomas Keller sat in. 😃 Also, in the letters to the editor section of a subsequent issue of _Vanity Fair_, Robert Wagner and Jill St. John trash that review and claim they’ve enjoyed the restaurant, its staff and fare for over 50 years and go there every chance they get. But to be fair, it’s entirely possible that wealthy, gorgeous celebrities and world-famous chefs get to experience the place in a somewhat different manner than the hoi polloi. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/47 "2011-07-26T14:19:26Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Well, your cite says: > > It’s not a red sauce, it is certainly supposed to be focused on the meat, but it’s not necessarily supposed to be finished with cream. Tomato is a newer addition, of course, being a New World fruit, but that doesn’t make it any less “authentic.” > > Also, read more [here.](http://culinariaitalia.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/ragu-alla-bolognese-authentic-recipe/) That’s as “authentic” as you’re going to get. > > Plus, [here is a very detailed description](http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=3147#3147) of bolognese on a message board by an food historian (who is of Italian extraction) that goes into all the ins and outs of bolognese, as well as [this follow-up post](http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5390) with a few more pointers and some pictures. (Also, note the amount of ragú in his plated dish.) My post wasn’t meant to be the recipe for Bolognese, just the usual ingredients for Bolognese that are not usually in a basic tomato sauce. Btw, the pancetta isn’t really an ingredient as it is normally removed after being rendered. The fat remains for cooking the mirapoix but the spent pancetta would be removed. In my kitchen anyway. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/48 "2011-07-26T16:08:29Z")
> [@lukeinva](#): > > My post wasn’t meant to be the recipe for Bolognese, just the usual ingredients for Bolognese that are not usually in a basic tomato sauce. Ah, yes. You’ll get no arguments from me, although I tend to keep the pancetta in. I think we both agree that while “bolognese” may have become a sort of synonym for a almost any type of ground or finely diced meat sauce in English, in the context of Italian cuisine or at an Italian restaurant trying to remain true to the style, it’s a more specific type of meat sauce, which is different than other types of ragú. Ground meat swimming in tomato sauce with lots of herbs and spices and garlic in it is good, but it’s not ragú alla bolognese. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/49 "2011-07-26T17:17:15Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Ah, yes. You’ll get no arguments from me… Enough of this you two, take it to the pit! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/50 "2011-07-28T04:10:12Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Also, in the letters to the editor section of a subsequent issue of _Vanity Fair_, Robert Wagner and Jill St. John trash that review and claim they’ve enjoyed the restaurant, its staff and fare for over 50 years and go there every chance they get. Hah! FWIW, I just happened upon Wagner/St. John’s letter in the editor in regard to this review. I had forgotten they called Gill a cunt. 😃 To wit: > [@](#): > > Regarding A.A. Gill’s mean-spirited and bitchy review of the iconic restaurant L’Ami Louis, there are legions of beg to differ. > > \ > > Not only is he wrong, but one feels that Gill’s labial, proctologic, colonic, urinary, and suppository references apply solely to himself rather than to one of the best restaurants anywhere. He is truly a “c-u-next-Tuesday.” > > ~R.J. WAGNER AND JILL ST. JOHN WAGNER > Los Angeles, California ---
**Author:** ![gerthearcejor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ad7895/32.png) [@gerthearcejor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gerthearcejor)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-restaurant-review/589849/51 "2011-09-21T05:46:57Z")
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