Nice bagging of the Aussies…but…
The term entree has a somewhat chequered history, not as linear as you suggest.
Actual terminology has more to do with NY apathy than change in meal structure. But you know this already. It’s just not that interesting is it?
Link to column: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/071214.html
millionmonkeys writes:
> Actual terminology has more to do with NY apathy than change in meal
> structure. But you know this already. It’s just not that interesting is it?
Could you explain what this means?
Welcome to the SDMB, millionmonkeys.
Here’s a link to the column, which helps keep everybody on the same page: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/071214.html
I, too, loved the Aussie smackdown. “Pitworthy” would do it an injustice!
I know some Bruces and Sheilas who ain’t gonna like that column, mate.
Major wars have been fought over less serious insults than this. I’ll just say that that, for at least the last 20 years, the average restaurant in Sydney or Melbourne has offered much better and more interesting food than the average restaurant in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
Another little known fact: the average entree in Atlanta is 20 percent less nutritious than the average entree in Brisbane.
Well, kangaroo IS low in fat. 
Should I even bother asking for a cite on that?
Well, if you don’t believe me, perhaps you’ll believe the LA Times, for example. Though I was really just talking from my personal experience.
Did you mean this?
As the cab carried us back to our hotel that night, we passed Harry’s Cafe de Wheels at Wooloomooloo Wharf, a stand that’s known for meat pies. It’s the equivalent of Tommy’s Burgers in L.A., a Sydney institution where people go for a bite in the wee hours of the morning, after the opera or a night of club hopping.
That really doesn’t say this
…for at least the last 20 years, the average restaurant in Sydney or Melbourne has offered much better and more interesting food than the average restaurant in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles,
No, since I wouldn’t describe Harry’s Cafe e Wheels as a restaurants. I haven’t been there for decades, but I don’t think they have any tables and chairs: they just sell food to take away.
I was thnking more about quotes like these:
and
Giles writes:
> I’ll just say that that, for at least the last 20 years, the average restaurant in
> Sydney or Melbourne has offered much better and more interesting food than
> the average restaurant in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
How can anyone possibly know this unless they have spend the last twenty years full-time eating out in all five of the cities - and in a full range of restaurants, not just in downscale or upscale places? To have done such would take somebody with as much experience as a good restaurant critic - and a good restaurant critic in each of these five cities. I can’t believe anyone has the overall knowledge to make this statement.
millionmonkeys writes:
> Actual terminology has more to do with NY apathy than change in meal
> structure. But you know this already. It’s just not that interesting is it?
I’m still waiting for you to explain what this sentence means.
Yes, but where are the supporting data for the claim that “for at least the last 20 years, the average restaurant in Sydney or Melbourne has offered much better and more interesting food than the average restaurant in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles”?
You can claim that the world is taking notice of Australia’s cuisine (at least according to the food critic). Or you can claim that the critic daydreams about eating at a particular restaurant in Sydney months after having done so. But you need more than you’ve shown to claim anything about average restaurants (whatever that means) in the five cities you’ve mentioned. In fact, if you insist on invoking the critic’s authority, Melbourne is automatically knocked out of your claim, owing to the veritable supremacy of Sydney.
OK, I have a small confession to make: my experience with restaurants in the US only goes back 14 years, while in Australia I go back about 40 years. However, I’ve dined out in many cities in the US, often at places highly recommended by the locals. And I’m not saying that the difference in the average is massive – just that Autralian restaurants have a bit of an edge.
But even so, are people seriously defending this:
For example, on this list of the top 50, the top Australian restaurant comes in at #5, and Australia has 2 compared to the US’s 8. Allowing for population differences, if Australia has 2 in the list, the US should have about 30.
The conventional view in Australia is that Melbourne has the better restaurants – and I’m saying that as someone who was born in Sydney – and back a long time ago that was certainly true. However, I haven’t eaten out in Melbourne in the last 10 years often enough to be sure that’s still true.
Giles writes:
> OK, I have a small confession to make: my experience with restaurants in the
> US only goes back 14 years, while in Australia I go back about 40 years.
> However, I’ve dined out in many cities in the US, often at places highly
> recommended by the locals. And I’m not saying that the difference in the
> average is massive – just that Autralian restaurants have a bit of an edge.
So you haven’t spent huge amounts of time in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago over that time, since you admit that you have dined out in many cities in the U.S., which means that you can’t have had time to dine out just in those three cities. And you apparently haven’t spent huge amounts of time in Sydney or Melbourne either in the same time period.
> For example, on this list of the top 50, the top Australian restaurant comes in at
> #5, and Australia has 2 compared to the US’s 8. Allowing for population
> differences, if Australia has 2 in the list, the US should have about 30.
You said that you were comparing the “average restaurant,” not the very best ones. I think that the fact that Australia has slightly more restaurants in the list than they would given their population says nothing about the average restaurants there. Indeed, it doesn’t even say anything about the best restaurants there. Just by chance it could happen that two of their restaurants are in the top 50 while eight American ones are.
You ask if we’re seriously defending this statement by Cecil:
> Strong stuff, Tony, coming from a country that’s only in the last 20 years
> crawled from a primordial ooze of baked beans and Vegemite to lie panting on
> the shores of respectable cuisine. Even after recent advances, the Aussies are
> still trailing about a century behind the serious culinary world powers, so I’ll
> excuse you for not knowing what you’re talking about foodwise. What I won’t
> stand for, however, is some smart-ass impugning the intellect of the Teeming
> Millions — that’s my department. So cut the sass and acknowledge your
> ignorance, and I’ll dumb this down enough for you, too.
No, of course we’re not seriously defending it. That’s a typical piece of snide exaggeration by Cecil. It’s how a lot of his columns start. Note that it’s in reply to a similarly snide question. Cecil just decided to reply to a nasty question with an equally nasty answer.
Snide exaggerations only really work if they have some basis in reality. The nastiness in the question was a reference to dumbing down for Americans, and that has some basis in reality. But the nasty response suggests that Cecil has no knowledge at all of Australian food, except for Vegemite. He even gets baked beans wrong: they are eaten in Australia, but not as much as they are in the US, where they are a very common accompaniment to meals. On this subject Cecil is totally ignorant, and I’m doing my small bit to fight ignorance here.
Cecil’s tone is fine. In Australia, that level of insult is an indication of friendliness, nothing more. FWIW, I asked the entree question here a while ago.
As for food quality, (IMHO) Sydney beats Melbourne if someone else is picking up the bill and you can get a table. Melbourne beats pretty much anywhere if you’re paying and like a variety of foods from Asia and Europe. It’s got breadth and depth. I’ve eaten in good places in Beijing, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hanoi, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Changsha, Delhi and Mumbai (amongst others) and found nothing to be much better than what’s available here. But you’re in a fair bit of trouble if you want North or Central American cuisine.
What is true is that food is provincial Australia has improved out of sight in the last 20 years. Since tourists persist in the idea that “the real Australia” exists well away from the areas where almost all people actually live, I imagine that this improvement is notable.
I assume that means you’re retracting your previous cite (which you’re contradicting here). However, to remind you once again of the statement you made (minus the time-frame, which you’ve also retracted):
[T]he average restaurant in Sydney or Melbourne has offered much better and more interesting food than the average restaurant in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.Do you have anything to back up your claim?
I’m not sure you understand what fighting ignorance means. If before, we were ignorant of your opinions, we are now informed of those. But if you mean anything beyond that, you’ve failed to be convincing.