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You're Not in Guaymas Anymore
Visduh - You're right and I confess, grade inflation has crept into my reviews, just like at US colleges AFTER I graduated. (Those days, it was because of the draft for the Vietnam War, and many liberal profs started grading higher to help boys keep their student deferments.) So two and a half stars (good to very good) has actually come to mean "average" in my reviews -- but (as noted below) "average" in SD is much better than it used to be. I was actually mildly horrified to realize, when this week's paper came out, that I'd graded Barrio Star 2 1/2 stars, when in hindsight so clearly it should be two -- although that, and Los Arcos, are both still way, way better than the awful slop at most neighborhood restaurants here when I arrived in SD 10 years ago. (At that time, I was flooded with hate e-mail calling me a San Francisco food snob. Maybe I eventually caved somewhat under it. Or maybe I just learned to feel pathetically grateful whenever there were decent veggies on a plate or any other sign of life in the kitchen.) I promise you and myself -- from now on, I'll try to remember to make 2 the "average" grade for edible, decent, but uninspired food. (If this were the NY Times, they'd get one star or none. But NY has better competition.) I did sort of like those creamy, gooey fishes at Los Arcos -- but, at the price, mentally should have compared them to Candelas rather than to my best neighborhood taqueria. Mr. Gringo: No, I'm not always "upscale." Sometimes I steal the food right out of EdBed's mouth when I'm hot for an authentic ethnic restaurant. But I do pretty much leave Tijuana to Ed since 9/11 made border crossing such a lengthy business. The reason: His readers tend to be younger (and male) and more willing to get home very late, if needs be, while mine usually have "straight jobs" that require them to show up at their offices at the appointed godawful morning hour. Plus by dinnertime, they're already done as much commuting as they can stand, leaving only Saturday for an Adventure Trip to Tijuana. (I was also appalled, a few years ago, when a gringa suburban mom was dragged away from her family on line to the border crossing by two Tijuana cops who raped her, after stealing her husband's money and credit cards and using his ATM card to ravage the family bank account. Huge turn-off on Tijuana from that.It's already a given that in Mexico, you don't go to the cops -- but when the cops themselves are the rapists, that just about blows it. I guess it's a little safer for tourists now that so many underpaid cops make their needed extra money from the drug cartels.) Millerowsky -- Yes, Baquetta is a very good substitute for Corvina, very similar. The popularity of Los Arcos isn't hard to understand -- CV, with a large Mexican population, doesn't have a lot of upscale Mexican restaurants where you can go with the whole familia for a celebration and feel you've had a special meal.— August 6, 2010 6:11 p.m.
Of an Earlier Era
Wow, Typo Patrol alert! This is serious! Three stars is not merely "fair to good," it is "very good." (This error appeared in the print edition as well.) My apologies to Wellington for spoiling the possible glee at a favorable review. The print edition also made a hash of the paragraph where I described Javier's professionalism, by somehow losing a long half a sentence.— July 9, 2010 4:14 p.m.
slow food fun stuff and cheapies
I didn't see "Focaccia Blues," alas. But I love the idea of doing a column on food movies! Now and then I get a total "posse-crash" (everyone's out of town, busy, whatever) and I end up desperate for a review. (That's how ATE happened this week, for which I'm truly glad.) This is a fun idea for when I'm really strapped for a restaurant.It will happen, eventually. My numero uno in this category is "Tampopo," which taught me all about ramen -- and was otherwise a hoot and a great work of art. Unfortunately for the other idea -- I tend to read food-writing in small bites, aside from the NY Times, Jeffrey Steinbergen in Vogue, and half a dozen cooking magazines. (Those are breakfast reading). After dealing with all food, all the time, for bedtime reading I prefer modern British mysteries. (Not dumb Agatha Christie and her endless crew of villainous butlers, but Reginald Hill, Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, etc.) Oh, and "exotic" mysteries like those of John Burdett (Thailand) and Colin Cotterell (Laos). The latter crowd do some pretty good food-writing too, tucked into the narratives.— May 21, 2010 8:54 p.m.
Letters
(continued from previous post) -- Ooops, several typos in that previous post. Print on "preview your comments" is so small and faint, I can barely see it.) Typo Patrol alert! To continue: Jambalaya has many variations but they should all taste really good. If a jambalaya tastes lackluster, it's pretty useless, no? And gumbo has even more variations. They don't all involve okra -- some have okra, some have file, some have neither one. For instance, my old friend Dewey Balfa (of the Cajun music group Balfa Freres, out of the Eunice area) used to make a Cajun file gumbo with no okra at all. Another old friend, Stanley Jackson (ex of Commander's Palace) favored the okra version with no file. But one sure thing is that you can't use frozen okra in a serious way in gumbo (as Indigo did) -- it doesn't work because pre-cooked okra loses all its "draw," the mucilaginous quality that thickens the liquid. Oh, finally, although this scarcely seems necessary (but it's another bit of foul play against me), I'm not a La Jolla princess. (My late predecessor, 10 years ago, was that.) I live in a distressed fixer-upper in a mainly-Mexican central city neighborhood with pawn shops and porn at the 7-11 but nothing so yuppie-ish as a dry cleaners, drugstore, bank, or supermarket. I've seen double-wide trailers bigger than this place. Maybe a trailer in Lakeside would improve my living conditions. Too bad that my editors will run thousands of words of hate mail in the Letters, but rarely let me see it in advance, much less answer it in full. (I didn't even get the whole letter about Little Peggy Marsh over my email, just the final part.) I think I'm supposed to maintain a dignified silence like Duncan usually does -- but this string goes on and on, with the same themes and outright falsehoods set out by the restaurant owners in their hugely long original salvo. Dignity be damned! I reviewed them honestly and they lied about me.— May 21, 2010 8:18 p.m.
Letters
Oh, man, how much longer will this calumny-folklore of "the drunken food critic" disseminated by a disgruntled restaurant owner go on? Can't you guys do simple arithmetic. Four of us shared seven cocktails. That would make 1 3/4 cocktails each -- except that most of them were so icky-sweet I passed my share after a few sips to younger friends accustomed to modern candy cocktails. (She didn't get drunk either). So I had about 1 1/2 cocktails, and then sharing a bottle of wine with three others, one glass of wine.or Scarcely a drunken revel. I was probably soberer than most judges. As for leftovers: The meal is eaten hot at the restaurant. The leftovers are for analyzing what's in the dishes, and sometimes re-checking first impressions. (Some restaurants have gotten higher ratings based on re-tastings.) They don't last for days and days in the fridge, fading away -- they're used up within 48 hours normally. By the way, if you actually cooked on any regular basis, you'd know that most braises and stews actually improve after a night in the refrigerator or even "a cool place." A friend who has won numerous chili-cooking contests specifically leaves the half-done chili to sit overnight so that it mellows before he finishss cooking it the next day. Another point: I didn't insult the Mexican cook, who was doing the best he could with his instructions. Instead, I was sharply criticizing the restaurant-owners who furnished him with such inauthentic and UNAPPETIZING (!) recipes. (continued)— May 21, 2010 7:31 p.m.
Sunday Bargains at 3rd Corner, and other news
Oops, I meant "Mission Hills," not "Mission Valley." -- NW— April 14, 2010 8:18 p.m.
Tapas on Tokyo Time
I'm with you -- I don't routinely eat bluefin. A huge percentage of it is gobbled up in Japan, and at the moment I was so teed off by news reports of Japan's total refusal to cooperate in any sort of regulation -- if the species dies out it'll be their fault -- I decided to have a taste of the best part of it myself while we're both still alive. It is indeed great. (Also I'm sure the rest of the fish wasn't thrown away after my tiny bit of o-toro was cut off it). I do feel bad for eating an endangered species. But -- at the risk of sounding defensive -- it's also my job to know what every food in the world tastes like (from Oaxacan fried grasshoppers to Ecuadorian guinea pig to fried Thai bamboo worms to Trinidadian water-rodents...), including the good stuff. Had no idea about monkfish. That's awful. In general, I suspect bottom-trawlers should be outlawed -- not eating monkfish, but catching anything by such a draconian method. What's needed is not just public education, but international intervention with the force of law to protect the sea-life.— April 1, 2010 9:29 p.m.
To the Lighthouse
Darn it, Saint Steve! I was just thinking of you but when I looked at the time (yesterday, a writing night) I realized you'd be long since snoring away out there in snowy Denver. And of course I'm so used to email I keep forgetting I've got a phone. Miss you too, something awful. We shouldn't be verbally canoodling like this in public. Maybe I'll actually phone you -- or you could email me on my "private line," I know you know how. As for the other 500,000 of you reading that -- was it sexy enough, huh?— February 16, 2010 9:53 p.m.
Sour Grapefruit
Hey, SDaniels, good to see you again -- always one of the most interesting posters on this page. I love the Trader, but sometimes (especially with exotic stuff) you get what you pay for, meaning cheap rather than authentic. His red Hawaiian sea salt is about 20% Hawaiian. His sulfurous black lava Hawaiian salt tastes like it was chopped out of Kilauea's latest excrescence -- pure "a-a" (the Hawaiian name for spiky lava as well as the cry of anyone who steps on it) -- the very stuff that buried my favorite little town of Kalapana, and the famous Walt's General Store, and the Hawaiian Girl Group I made up, The Kalapana Kitty-Kats. (While driving around the Big Island, take any Hawaiian tourist-tune and replace the words with "Meow meow meow...." Even my ex-husband to-be got a crush on those kitty cuties.) Anyway, I get my salt collection from Salt Trader, on the internet. More expensive. Actually a lot more -- but I for about 60 bucks all told, I think I've got a lifetime supply including black truffle salt. Seems a safer investment than anything else in these parlous times.— February 16, 2010 9:42 p.m.
Sour Grapefruit
I enjoy saltiness, too -- I love anchovies, lox, olives, et al, and have a whole collection of interesting salts like fleur du sel (LOVE it), Malden sea salt, Hawaiian red salt, smoked black salt, Himalayan pink salt, truffled salt, et al TO APPLY LIGHTLY AT SERVING. Most food needs the chemical qualities of some salt (preferably Kosher salt, to avoid the iodine off-taste of table salt) in the cooking process, (e.g., salting the water for boiling pasta or potatoes or blanching veggies balances the sodium native to these ingredients, preventing shrinkage and adding a hint of good, good flavor.) But when restaurants pour it on just before serving, to the point it actually stings your lips and obscures the natural flavors of the dish, that's bad for the dish (and bad for everybody's health.) The best compromise is so simple: the kitchen should salt LIGHTLY just before serving, and the restaurant should have salt on the table for patrons to add their own to taste. Example: When Chez Panisse was new, Alice refused to have salt on the table, on grounds, "The food is salted properly in my kitchen!" After numerous complaints about undersalting from patrons and backers (Francis Coppola, Greil Marcus, etc.), she caved in and put out salt pigs on each table, with fleur du sel. And everybody was happy forever after.— February 9, 2010 9:08 p.m.