Wine. Travel. Food.
My partner, Pete, just got back from visiting in-laws in Sicily and I was reminded of my visits to the island and how I enjoyed being there. I write this now because if any of you are contemplating a trip to Italy, this is an ideal time to take in Sicily: The tourists are gone and the weather is perfect.
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I have a lot of respect for chain restaurants. I also have a lot of envy, too – because they have such a big advantage over us independents, particularly in advertising.
You can’t get through the day without being bombarded on TV with countless commercials. And some are pretty good. “Crabfest” at Red Lobster, Olive Garden’s “When you’re here, you’re family,” even the “Grand Slam” ads from Denny’s.
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It’s said that fish and chips originated in northern England during the mid-1800s, when Spanish Jews first brought fried fish to the British Isles and, coincidentally, deep-fried potato became an established food item.
Back in the early 1980s when Pete and I were preparing to open Pronto Ristorante, we figured it would be a good idea to learn more about Italian cuisine. So we signed up for an “Italian immersion cooking school” taught by the legendary Marcella Hazan in Bologna, Italy.
I know, I know – I just posted about how I’m not a fan of fancy restaurants – too hoity-toity, pretentious and expensive.
But there’s one restaurant – an expensive one – that I can’t get enough of.
And the food isn’t even that great.
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As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I’m not a huge fan of fancy Michelin 3 star-type restaurants. I admire them, but I not only chafe at the cost, I find most of them a little too precious and full of themselves. Plus, dinner takes too long and my butt gets sore.
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The food world is full of connoisseurs – steak fans, oyster mavens, cheese authorities, whisky and wine snobs, even soup Nazis. But have you ever once met a chicken aficionado?
For a long time, I felt there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between one roasted chicken and another. They all seemed pretty good to me – kind of like pizza (“The worst pizza I’ve ever had was pretty darn good.”).
Occasionally I tried roasting a better bird – organic, pasture-raised, “walking about” birds, etc. They were twice the price and marginally better than the garden variety supermarket industrial chicken.
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I’ve always loved Chinese restaurants – from our neighborhood take-out operations to the high-end, red-lacquered palaces in New York and San Francisco. I remember my first trips to Hong Kong and Shanghai, and how thrilling they were.
But more often than not, Chinese food is a disappointment. Maybe because so many Chinese restaurants dumb it down for the non-Chinese. It may also owe to the public’s belief that no matter how good the ingredients are, and how much skill goes into their preparation, prices should match those of the little takeout place down the street. Faced with a clientele that simply won’t pay for quality, the restaurants serve up an inferior product by necessity.
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Long, long ago – before I got into the restaurant business — I was a commercial interior designer who traveled frequently to New York. Even then, dining out was a passion.
I can recall the beauty of Andree Soltner’s dishes at Lutece. I remember the thrill of eating at La Cote Basque, La Caravelle and Gino Robusti and Bruno Caravaggi’s spectacular Quo Vadis. In the mid-‘80s, when Jonathan Waxman opened Jams in New York, his stunning and thoughtful combinations of sweet and savory, soft and crunchy, blew me away.
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As the owner of a steakhouse that aspires to be the best of the best, I have a responsibility to check out the competition. It’s hard work sometimes (Heavy is the hand that hoists the steak knife.), but I do it without complaint.
A quarter-century after opening Manny’s, I’ve eaten at probably every significant steakhouse around the globe. Some are traditional icons (think Peter Luger). Some are more adventurous, like Prime in Las Vegas or Kevin Rathburn in Atlanta. Some are more Italian, like Gene and Georgetti’s in Chicago, and of course there are the Argentinian restaurants like Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires, which I blogged about earlier.
I love ‘em all.
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