For any of you who have not had the pleasure of a truly transcendent meal in a fine restaurant, you have not lived. I patronize restaurants from both ends of the spectrum. It can be it a fried chicken take away with peeling paint or a fine French restaurant. The common thread to all of these establishments is that they serve great food.
I think your OP was a little inflammatory friedo. It does seem hard to screw up a turkey sandwich, but the staff certainly corrected the problem as soon as you brought it to their attention. I have only had to send food back once or twice out of hundreds of fine dining experiences. Good chefs spend most of their waking hours trying to ensure your eating pleasure. It is a disservice to slam such an honorable profession.
As for me, slather up some white bread with a thick schmear of Bestfood’s mayo, some white meat, thin dill pickle slices and a hint of mustard. I can eat two or three of these at a sitting.
PS: Do you cook? I wonder if you fully appreciate the effort involved in making a fine meal.
I think that a lot of specialty kitchens, which have a notoriously high failure rate, often either forget or are unwilling to recognize that they need to provide fare for the lowest common denominator of each party to prevent the party from going elsewhere. I prefer restaurants which go to the trouble to put at least one item on the menu for the gustatorially impaired. This way I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed by only eating bread and water, or watching my guest push unwanted food about on the plate.
I wonder why some chiefs are not able to use their creative talents to prepare tasteful and inventive meals which would appeal to people with more mundane palates. Anyone can take regionally rare ingredients and make them into something artistic. What few can do is work with what is already appreciated and make it wonderful without going outside the conventional bounds. I’m not remotely suggesting that chiefs should stick with the prosaic, but rather they should not limit their creativity to only one area. Serve up “Girl with Bare Feet”, “Science and Charity”, and “Lovers in the Street”, but also be prepared to roll out a “Mona Lisa” or two, or be prepared to either go broke or have to relocate to a large city.
My ex-partner used to run an organic vegan home meal and catering service, and now supervises a large vegetarian kitchen. For the first while, she would only come up with amazing dishes which few had ever heard of. Her sales were somewhat flat. She used me as her taste tester. I invariably I would say, “This is terrific, but does not appeal to me due to my limited tastes,” and then I would resign myself flying solo for the next couple of nights. Eventually she got tired of always being pissed off at me, and turned her talents to creating a few dishes which would appeal to troglodytes such as myself. The results were impressive. It became possible for me to give my honest taste test opinions and still have a sex life. Her more prosaic offerings were tremendously popular, so her business took off. The key was to offer both haute cuisine for the more daring and well developed palates, and also superbly prepared meals directed toward those with more traditional regional tastes. Yeah Karen! Success where so many had previously failed!
(On a slight tangent, what I find particularly annoying is the inability of most caterers to handle special orders. Despite putting in the request weeks in advance, over the years I have found that most often my request is forgotten or ignored. And no, I never ask for anything difficult to prepare, and yes, I have worked in a caterer’s office and kitchen. Thus I now try to catch a meal before heading out to a catered event.)
Good post muffin! I too believe that any establishment should include a vegetarian offering and something else that is immediately accessible to 90% of the population like a good chop or steak, maybe some pasta. All the frou-frou crap in the world ain’t going to guarantee your restaurant’s popularity like some good old down home cooking. A quick check of my recipe thread will tell you all you need to know about my stand on this topic.
** Les Sans Coulottes**. It’s on 2nd Avenue, between 57th and 58th on the West side of 2nd, 1/2 way up the block. I’ve gone on and off since 1983. Incredible meals. I’ve not been in quite a few years, but I was never disappointed when I went.
Oh, and the name is " Without Pants " in French. It’s price fixe ( did I spell that even remotely correctly??). Call ahead. I’m totally wine ignorant, they were nice about that too.
Hey Friedo, I bet that sandwich was served on a roll that felt as though it had been sitting out in the middle of the Gobi desert for eight days. At least that’s what I usually get when I try ordering a sandwich at most hoity-toity restaurants of the type that don’t hesitate to put grass in your food & call it alfalfa sprouts.
I see these hard rolls all the time, most notably in Au Bon Pain. This place seems to make decent sandwiches all right, but they insist on building them on what feels like three-day-old rock hard bread. And it doesn’t matter what kind of bread I ask for either. Sourdough, pumpernickel, rye, wheat, I almost always leave that place with the distinct feeling that my gums are bleeding.
And why shouldn’t they be rock hard? They leave the break sitting right out in the open all freaking day long, and sometimes ALL NIGHT.
NEWS FLASH: If you leave bread sitting out all day long, IT GOES STALE.
Sometimes it looks like it’s protected, maybe in a covered basket or a plexiglass display case which is clearly not air tight. Often you can see the long loaves of french bread poking up out of a basket, like breadsticks. I can almost see the freshness molecules drifting away into outer space. They even leave them out this way after the place closes- possibly for decoration. But I know full well they’re going to fire up their chain saws in the morning & cut them into sandwich bread for tomorrow’s hapless customers.
I don’t expect bread to be mushy-soft, it should have a slightly crusty shell in most cases. But when the two halves of the roll are so bite-resistant that you end up squeezing all of the tuna salad out from between them with the force of your bite, it’s time to bake some fresh bread.
Agreed…but if I may, Friedo does have a point. For the record, I’m an adventurous (and enthusiastic) eater but some–SOME–“fancy” restaurant offering are ridiculously overcomplicated. Their pretension far exceeds their palate.
Frankly, they aren’t in control of the food. This is particularly obvious in some of the unhappier attempts at fusion cuisine. Pulling off unusual taste combinations takes a helluva lotta skill, and some of 'em just plain don’t make it. I’ve been pretty disappointed, and a few times actively revolted, by “add trendy ingredients by column” approach: radicchio, balsamic, mango, cilantro, etc. etc.
Excelllent food doesn’t punch a person in the face. There’s a place nearby (French-trained chef) that’s a bit pricey but there isn’t a damned thing on the menu that’s overtly “show-offy”. Even the most deceptively simple dish is somehow mysteriously better. Even the Ex, a distinctly non-adventurous eater, was seduced into eating things he normally wouldn’t touch with a full HazMat suit. The chef is just that good; he’s in control of the food.
I guess what I’m saying is, it isn’t a choice between “fancy” for some and “home cookin’” for the rubes. Fans of plain food can still be treated to excellent, subtle, exhilarating food that’s worth every penny. The best ingredients, skill, technique, taste, etc. will work magic. I do have a lot of respect for chefs (I adore good food) but the simple fact is, some of them don’t cut it. Their effort isn’t really the point; the food they produce is. It’s like the old joke about a nympho who wants to be a hooker: make sure you’re really good at it before you start charging for it.
“I swear, on this one block are four places where you can buy croissants. There’s this one place called Bonjour Croissant. It makes me want to go to Paris and open a restaurant called Hello Toast.” - Fran Lebowitz
“But what French! Oh God, oh Montreal, what French!” - Dorothy Parker
Ummm… French Bread is SUPPOSED to be that way. Not stale, but definitely with a hard crust. It may come as a suprise to some, but in a large part of the world, the crust is considered the best part of the bread. Therefore, French, Italian, and other European-type breads often are quite crusty, and some may find sandwiches made on them difficult to eat.
As far as storing them out: Your typical baguette can spend many hours sitting out in the air. They’re packaged in paper or left “naked” on the counter because if you put 'em in plastic, the lovely crust will get mushy. You, Attrayant, may like it that way, but it’s not considered a good way to store it if you want to preserve the crust.
If you leave it out overnight, though, I can imagine that it’ll get hard as a rock. Baguettes are meant to be eaten the day they’re baked. If they’re serving you day-old bread, then you have every reason to bitch.
No, I don’t. I thought I said this pretty clearly. Bread should be crusty, maybe even crunchy in certain cases, but it I can’t saw through what is supposed to be a sandwich roll even with a steak knife, it’s time to bake some fresh bread.
I sometimes suspect that deli owners don’t discard their day old rock hard rolls, believing that ignorant consumers will just assume they’re experiencing some exotic designer bakery nouveau-riche oddity when in reality all they are eating is day old bread.
You should at least be able to bite into it, mmmmkay?
Roll? A turkey sandwich is served on bread. Preferably the white, sliced variety that says “Wonder” on the bag.
I go into one of the local trendy places and order my favourite sandwich, a clubhouse. Up to this time I didn’t think that anyone could fuck up a clubhouse. Two slices of toasted bread with crispy bacon, turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayo. Slice it into triangles and shove a toothpick through the damn thing before you put it on the plate (you can forget the toothpick if not available)!
I place my order and wait, salivating with the thought of all that bacon and mayo. The waitress shows up with my order. But something is wrong, severely wrong! I look at my plate and I see a Kaiser roll. I pick it up and look inside. I see beef! I see ham! I see MUSTARD!! I explained the situation to the waitress, stating I received the wrong order. Little sympathy.
“Would you like something else”, she says.
“Yes”, says I. “I would like a clubhouse”
“But that is a clubhouse. See it says right here on the menu”, gloats her as she points out on the menu under ClubHouse, ‘beef, ham, mustard…served on a Kaiser bun’.
So, I eat my hammy, beef bunwich, while twiddling the one familiar item, a toothpick, between my fingers.
Actually, Satan, I don’t get it. So he decides to put up with his family’s choice of restuarant. What exactly does this say about why he chose a turkey sandwhich? Am I missing something? Isn’t it common sense to order the type of food a restuarant specializes in? And if he truly only likes plain food, why complain when he goes to a place that you would not expect to get plain food, and doesn’t in fact get it?
If they gave him the same sandwhich he makes at home, would he be happy? If so, why? Wouldn’t paying $7 for something he can make himself for $2 be upsetting? Wouldn’t the fancy restuarant not be doing it’s job if it didn’t make the sandwhich in an interesting way?
Avumede makes a good point that serves to prove Java’s as well. From what I can gather in the OP the turkey sandwich was the only appealing item on the menu. That is why I mentioned the importance of a few simple items on any restaurant’s menu. Java deserves a lot of credit for experimenting well within the lines of tradition. Her recent menu posted at my recipe thread is an outstanding example of how to meet both requirements.
Hey friedo, too bad about that turkey of a sandwich! I hate to see good food prepared badly! (Vinegar? WTF?)
A proper turkey sandwitch:
French Bead, sliced not too thin. But never a roll.
Very Full of Fat Mayonaise
Swiss Cheese!!
Roast Turkey (if there is dark meat all the better!!)
Tomato
Crispy Lettuce
and for those who like it, black pepper
That’s a sandwich!!
BTW, I love fancy restaurants, when done right. The food we’ve had in some places in SF is incredible. A few weeks ago while visiting Vegas we tried a place called Aureole in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. The food was just incredible, with things we have never tried before. I’d highly reccomend it, but no turkey on the menu.
My husband and I are somewhat adventurous when it comes to food, but we DO have one rule: it must TASTE good! That means no frou-frou strange sauces, no eensy-beansy portions (I want to be able to TASTE it, darn it! Not easy when you hardly get half a mouthful). We’ve discovered in our restaurant wanderings that there are some secrets:
If going to an ethnic restaurant, 1. Observe the other diners. If it’s a Chinese restaurant and the only Oriental you see is the waiter, go somewhere else. If, however, it’s cramed with them, you can be pretty sure it’s going to have good food that’s also reasonably authentic. (Why eat faux Chinese when the real stuff is so much better?)
If you have no idea what to make of the menu, ask the waitperson. If you have some reservations or restrictions (no meat, no exotic ingredients) let them know. Usually they will be truthful if something isn’t “up to snuff” that day, and can generally steer you in the direction of something that will please you. Example: On Chinese New Year, we went to a place in Seattle and decided NOT to get the usual “Combo” plate. The waiter recommended the crab in black bean sauce, and it was WONDERFUL!!! Not something we would have chosen on our own, but I’m glad it was pointed out to us – it’s turned out to be a favorite.
Another way to pick a good restaurant: How does it smell when you get inside? If the odor is one of wood smoke and sizzling steak, or something of that nature, it’s probably a pretty good place to eat. Namely, does the scent make your mouth water?
Any restaurant will be better if you’re hungry when you go.
How big is the menu: How many items are on it? If it’s a fairly small restaurant, a fairly small menu generally means that they only do a few things, but they do them VERY well. This is the type of place to go if you aren’t picky.
Don’t be afraid to speak up if someone offers you something that isn’t to your liking. Example: My husband went to a local deli for a corn beef sandwich. The server asked “Do you want tomato, lettuce, sprouts on that?” His reply was “God, NO! That’s an abomination!” (Corn beef sandwiches should be: lots of slow-roasted thinly sliced corn beef on a roll with a smidge of horseradish and, possibly, mustard. With a kosher pickle on the side.)
In a strange town, ask the locals for recommendations. Some of the best people to ask are taxi drivers and bus drivers. If you are like us, let them know you DON’T want to do the tourist places, you’d rather eat where the locals eat. Usually they can give you a couple good recommendations.
Just some advice (probably unwanted.) As far as restaurants go, we’ve been incredibly lucky. I think we’ve only had one real stinker (both literally and figuratively) of a meal: A fish taco at a local chain. (Mrs. Pauls half baked breaded fish fillet on a cold tortilla, with shredded cabbage, salsa, and black beans. GAG!!)
Oh, and the turkey sandwich? One of the best I had (and yes, it was somewhat “exotic”) was turkey, lettuce, tomato and chutney on very crusty sourdough. The chutney was a nice addition, and made the sandwich better than “Just a Turkey Sandwich anyone can make at home.”
