Kniferide wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 6:12 pm

penningtron wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 12:47 pm

Kniferide wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 12:18 pm I kinda wish they would get rid of the tweedle dee / tweedle dum combo cause they are loud and annoying and serve zero function, for whatever reason they get more screen time than anyone else on the show.

YES. Also I've seen that neck tat dude in interviews and he's part that VICE tv food bro culture. No thanks.

Yeah he is a youtube food guy and everything he cooks looks like total horseshit.

Never seen the show but my brother is into that stuff and I just can’t.

Zom Zom warned us about tv chefs and did we listen? I think he came around on Bourdain though.

tallchris wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:17 pm Is Avec a total pain in the ass to go to since it was in The Bear? Always loved going midday and being able to get a bar seat and plow through a serving of the dates.

Every single restaurant in Chicago that isn't a beef stand or a taqueria is a total fucking pain in the ass. And even some beef stands/taquerias are as well. It's shitty and depressing what a miserable experience eating at a restaurant has become. Bullshit rockstar chefs and narcissistic servers. Screamingly loud dining rooms with tables that are crammed together. People live streaming their meals. An entree will have a long list of delicious ingredients, but it turns out those foraged mushrooms are just an ingredient in the single 2mL drop of puree that they drip onto your plate. No thank you. This dumb show reflects everything I hate about 'foodie culture'.

^ Pretty much why if I find myself in the city I will only patronize taquerias or hot dog stands. Mostly taquerias.

Tweezer food mostly isn't my thing but at least you know what you're getting into there. It's the in-between, 'elevated' normal food experience that annoys the hell out of me. Shave some truffle over a burger and suddenly you're looking at an $80/person meal. That's like 2/3s of the new restaurants opening up it seems. Let's go enjoy some duck confit tacos and be out $125.. thanks Food Network.

jeff fox wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:55 am
Every single restaurant in Chicago that isn't a beef stand or a taqueria is a total fucking pain in the ass. And even some beef stands/taquerias are as well. It's shitty and depressing what a miserable experience eating at a restaurant has become. Bullshit rockstar chefs and narcissistic servers. Screamingly loud dining rooms with tables that are crammed together. People live streaming their meals. An entree will have a long list of delicious ingredients, but it turns out those foraged mushrooms are just an ingredient in the single 2mL drop of puree that they drip onto your plate. No thank you. This dumb show reflects everything I hate about 'foodie culture'.

This. 100%. Same in Los Angeles. "[Insert wannabe rock star chef here] brings his/her talents from [insert city and now closed restaurant here]..." So many fucking restaurants opening it's not even funny, and sommeliers are gone, it's like the position was eliminated when Hollywood shut down, with responsibilities now falling on GMs and AGMs. Oh, and if you have a full liquor license, likely you are taking money from Campari or Bacardi or some big brand winery for "support." It's gross. And the new restaurants are soooo fucking loud. I hate it.

Some of this is true about new restaurants in NYC, some of it isn't. I can think of two upper-midpriced or lower-high-end places that opened this year that are fast becoming favorites. And honestly, I'm more miffed by food halls and people paying too much money for elevated junkfood than I am by the state of fine dining. Some of the time here, the profit margin on a slice or taco is actually higher than it is on a good meal that a lot of work and thought went into. Which isn't to say that reasonably priced, transcendent pizza and antojitos do not exist.

Still, reservations and the various online middlemen that younger people insist on using to obtain them are a horrible tech- and status-oriented shitshow. (Although this is mostly the diner's fault, after years of rampant cancelations and table juggling.) This is by far the worst thing about eating out in 2024. Same goes for delivery or pickup. I miss the days when you could just fucking call a joint, book a table or place an order w/a human being, and be done w/it, sans gadgets, fees, and nonsense.

Somms are, yes, suddenly an endangered species b/c more and more kids prefer cocktails, weed, or neotemperance. And this sucks for those of us who give a shit about wine.

And dining rooms are indeed loud as fuck.

Some places gouge, but I'm not gonna complain about pricing too much b/c so many restaurants, even high-end ones (often when they don't have finance-world backers and sometimes even when they do) operate on razor thin margins w/increasing labor costs and seriously jacked wholesale food costs. Quality raw material isn't usually cheap nowadays, even when you're buying decent meat and vegetables at home. Portion sizes do seem to be shrinking at restaurants, though, and not always at places that served way too generously in the first place. Slightly smaller dishes are usually fine at Cantonese banquet joints, not so fine when you're paying close to $30 for a seafood tapa.

I have not started Season 3 of The Bear, but based on this thread, I am not expecting much.

jeff fox wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:55 am

tallchris wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:17 pm Is Avec a total pain in the ass to go to since it was in The Bear? Always loved going midday and being able to get a bar seat and plow through a serving of the dates.

Every single restaurant in Chicago that isn't a beef stand or a taqueria is a total fucking pain in the ass. And even some beef stands/taquerias are as well. It's shitty and depressing what a miserable experience eating at a restaurant has become. Bullshit rockstar chefs and narcissistic servers. Screamingly loud dining rooms with tables that are crammed together. People live streaming their meals. An entree will have a long list of delicious ingredients, but it turns out those foraged mushrooms are just an ingredient in the single 2mL drop of puree that they drip onto your plate. No thank you. This dumb show reflects everything I hate about 'foodie culture'.

Luckily a ton of Portlands tastiest food comes out of a truck so you can just go get it. 90% of the time all I want to eat is tacos, Pho or Indonesian anyway. I don't fuck with "fine dining" cause I only have jeans and old stained t-shirts to wear. Also, if it takes longer than an to get and eat my food, someone is fucking up somewhere. I also will not wait in line for more than like... 15 minutes. Standing in line for 2 hours to get food an activity Portlanders seem drawn to like maggots on a corpse.

I watched the first two episodes of the first season but couldn't get into it. "What happened in NYC?" and "what happened to the brother?" and whatever other questions they had in the expose just didn't really grab. I don't give a shit. It feels like a show that's made by people who think they're deep but are actually idiots. I can see it getting better but I don't think I'll put myself through however many episodes it takes to get there.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 1:46 pm
Some places gouge, but I'm not gonna complain about pricing too much b/c so many restaurants, even high-end ones (often when they don't have finance-world backers and sometimes even when they do) operate on razor thin margins w/increasing labor costs and seriously jacked wholesale food costs. Quality raw material isn't usually cheap nowadays, even when you're buying decent meat and vegetables at home. Portion sizes do seem to be shrinking at restaurants, though, and not always at places that served way too generously in the first place.

I am convinced that in Los Angeles, all new high(er)-end restaurants are backed financially by people (Hollywood and adjacent, and more recently, large real estate developers) who 1) want a to own a restaurant so they can have a place to go with them and their friends, whenever, 2) need deep expense line for the their taxes, 3) don't really care if these places make it five years, cuz they'll open another one anyway. You can see what these places are by the low number of kitchen staff, as they are all open kitchens, of course. Menus are small, plates are small, things are very composed. Wine lists are small (so are the cellars, physically, by design), cocktails are short and start at $20, some arrive in two parts, so you can mix them yourself ( also fuck you, you finish making my $24 drink, thanks).

I'm a little miffed cuz I just spend $208 (before tip) on four cocktails (short), two appetizers, and a very small pizza.

That said, these places do keep people employed at decent money, so there's that.

enframed wrote:

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 1:46 pm
Some places gouge, but I'm not gonna complain about pricing too much b/c so many restaurants, even high-end ones (often when they don't have finance-world backers and sometimes even when they do) operate on razor thin margins w/increasing labor costs and seriously jacked wholesale food costs. Quality raw material isn't usually cheap nowadays, even when you're buying decent meat and vegetables at home. Portion sizes do seem to be shrinking at restaurants, though, and not always at places that served way too generously in the first place.

I am convinced that in Los Angeles, all new high(er)-end restaurants are backed financially by people (Hollywood and adjacent, and more recently, large real estate developers) who 1) want a to own a restaurant so they can have a place to go with them and their friends, whenever, 2) need deep expense line for the their taxes, 3) don't really care if these places make it five years, cuz they'll open another one anyway. You can see what these places are by the low number of kitchen staff, as they are all open kitchens, of course. Menus are small, plates are small, things are very composed. Wine lists are small (so are the cellars, physically, by design), cocktails are short and start at $20, some arrive in two parts, so you can mix them yourself ( also fuck you, you finish making my $24 drink, thanks).

I'm a little miffed cuz I just spend $208 (before tip) on four cocktails (short), two appetizers, and a very small pizza.

That said, these places do keep people employed at decent money, so there's that.

That's a fucking travesty. I'd have never guessed it, but it sounds like the state of higher end food is actually more ridiculous in LA than it is in NYC. It's funny b/c when I go to Philly, I come back thinking that the restaurant scene here in New York is a dopey minefield for suckers. But what you just described sounds a good deal worse.

I dunno how they do it, but people who aren't necessarily rich kids do sometimes still open places in New York w/o a stream of Wall Streeters and their tax write-offs backing them up. And sometimes even w/backers who give a shit. It gets harder and harder, but still.

I've never encountered a two part mix-it-yourself cocktail (the big trend here seems to be grossly overpriced mocktails). And for $208 after tax and tip, I can usually eat many courses of amazing food (at least, something way more ambitious than pizza) and down a few glasses. Not so hard to be very, very satisfied and a little drunk for that kinda cash.

The first episode of Season 3 of The Bear actually annoyed me less than the overall tone of the previous season, which seemed like it was trying too hard and pushing the drama. Whereas this season's opener was simply a very pretty—but entirely pointless and cameo-filled—abstraction. Maybe it was self-sconsciouly arty and w/o much substance (what purpose did those flashbacks even serve? just to bring people up to speed who had head the hype but had never watched the show before?), but somehow, it bugged me less than where things had been heading before. Granted, this was a whopping one episode. I am not hopeful, but let's see where it goes.