Lean is still what I was suggesting. I do not find any American-style marbled beef here, unless it comes from elsewhere in the EU, although it may well exist, and I, too, am at that point in life. Marbled PORK, on the other hand, in prosciutto and otherwise…mamma mia! And not so much fat, but rather, in modest quantity and in all the right places, like a young Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida! 
Gee a lot to respond to. Let see:
Chianina Beef - It isn’t bad, and I haven’t had any in 13 years, but I can tell you it is not at the same level as US beef. It isn’t even as good as Charolais beef used to be before the mad cow crisis. And it is certainly not as good as beef from Gallicia (which is probably the best in Europe), Danish beef or the grass-fed stuff coming out of Ireland these days. If you are a Rioja drinker and you want a good steak in Europe, next time you visit Haro, go to a place outside of Bilbao called Horma Hondo. They have excellent steaks from a single source slaughterhouse in Gallcia. Best I have had in Europe. Goodman in London has very good Irish and British beef aged by the butcher O’Shea’s.
Bill Klapp- Thanks for the shout out but you have described the way I reach a conclusion in the exact opposite way to how I actually do it. I believe that the only correct way to determine quality is by dismissing subjective opinion and evaluating the evidence that is extrinsic to the subject in order to reach a conclusion. So it is best to describe what I believe in as a rejection of subjective belief in favor of applying a more scientific approach to the data before reaching a reasonable conclusion. So for example, if a dozen people who participate in my dining survey write in about La Tupina, and I know that they are all experienced diners who have the experience to assess that specific subject, and 75% of them write of a poor experience, I am fairly certain it is not a good restaurant. Mind you, that does not eliminate room to disagree. But the issue isn’t who is right, the issue is which conclusion is more reasonable, and I have found that in 90%+ of instances, doing it that way will have more value than a single opinion like Bob Parker’s.
Subjective opinion? What did you say about pasta again?
Splitting this thread up
YOU DA MAN! But how will you decide how many pieces and where to put them all? 
Make sure you put Plotnicki one one side and Klapp on the other… 
Ah, the Trip Advisor approach. Or Amazon.com book reviews…
That isn’t the Trip Advisor approach at all. Remember, I said people who had the experience to be able to evaluate it properly.
On the other thread, someone posted something about pasta and I posted the following:
How many pieces of evidence would you like me to post showing that pasta is at a lower level than whole protein dishes? I mean let’s start out with what a box of pasta costs compared to what even good hamburger meat costs. Then let’s go on to note that while every culture makes flour, and has a water supply, hardly any of them have a mandatory course based around starch. And as you unpeel the onion, you will find that cultures that have a starch course as part of their meal, did so as a matter of need and not preference. I can go on and on. Now of course that isn’t the same as saying that pasta is not delicious. It clearly is. But the issue isn’t whether it tastes good, the issue is, how can a cuisine be considered so great, when the confines of what chefs could create were so limited by cost? The French had no such limitation, and their cuisine reflects it. Same with the Chinese and Japanese. I love Chinese food and I eat it all of the time. But the cuisine doesn’t have the same quest for excellence that you find in Japanese food. The Japanese were far wealthier than the Chinese, did not have the types of population problems that they had in China so there were less mouths to feed, which allowed their cuisine to be shaped by an upper middle class that could afford to demand excellence. I can’t tell you how many top sushi chefs have discussed the various qualities of rice with me, how they polish it themselves etc. Have you ever heard of a single Chinese chef caring about the rice they use? The same level of particularity is just not there. So to me, not only is it not logical to claim that a cuisine with less particularity is superior to one where the chefs have spent countless hours trying to make something more perfect, you can see those differences in the food if you are trained to taste them. I mean isn’t it the same for wine?
You can start with one.
I gave you three. The cost compared to what proteins cost, the fact that most pasta dishes aspire to be like proteins by including bits of an ingredient, the fact that other cultures do not have pasta/starch courses, and that in every instance where a cuisine has a starch course, it is driven by a lack of wealth.
Let’s start with the inferences you draw from those three facts?
How about we start with Cucina Povera. Plenty of half assed chefs get by with dosing everything with truffle oil and foie gras. When you have simple ingredients, often driven by poverty, you have to try to find the best way to get great flavors from them. The thing you love the most has only flour, salt, yeast and water. Seems to be missing protein. One of the most simple things ever discovered/created. And one of the best.
I don’t think pasta has any yeast in it. But if RW starts making pasta…
He knows what I am talking about. It is so important that the name is often used in place of money.
Cucina Povera chefs do not have the luxury of sitting in a laboratory and figuring out the best way to cook something. Or which specific ingredient works best in their recipe. But it really doesn’t matter. Think of it like this. The reason that the Barolo winemakers were able to bottle their wines by vineyard, is because there was a market who would pay the incremental difference for better quality. And because the winemakers wanted to exploit that market, they created a winemaking culture that was dedicated to excellence. But if the market was limited to people who would only pay for the quality of Barbera, their strategy would have been different and their culture would have evolved differently. It’s the same with food. A hell of a lot more effort goes into a $150 tasting menu then goes into a steak at The Palm or Trattoria Sostanza in Florence or a bowl of pasta. You can measure it in countless ways from the care given to choosing the ingredients to the number of chefs in the kitchen. Craftsmanship, which is what we are talking about, is something that you can measure. Whether it be the way a car is made, the way a bottle of wine is made, the way an acoustic guitar is made, the way a pair of shoes is made, the way a watch is made etc. And it is typical for the level of craftsmanship to go up with price point. And at most French restaurants versus Italian restaurants, the difference of the level of craftsmanship is apparent. Italians are dedicated to fine craftsmanship for many things (clothing, household accessories, furniture, cars to name a few,) but food is not one of them. When it comes to food they are dedicated to micro-regionality. Their craft rarely rises above how to cook the best ingredient from their region perfectly.
Pretty ridiculous line of statements. With a very distorted view on the food world. We really can’t have any kind of rational discussion on the topic. I will let someone else “suffer” you.
Completely subjective on your part, the choice of those people, eh? And your subjective determination of “proper”. Might you get some reliable reviews? Absolutely. But not because of your insistence that what you are doing is objective…
Gary York’s response is pretty much why I stopped participating in discussion forums. I am not trying to insult anyone but you guys are not opened minded to another argument other than the same old arguments you have been having since discussion forums were invented. And it is typical that when confronted with a non-traditional, and fact-based argument like the one I offered, that the response is an insult like Gary’s post.
Bill - I didn’t say that they were “proper” as a matter of opinion, I reached that conclusion based on their dining experience. If I poll a panel of people who have all been to the top restaurants in the U.S. and Europe, their opinion has more value than the opinion of people who don’t have that level of experience.
Don’t you agree that in general,the value of an opinion is relative to the level of experience that goes into formulating that opinion?
Right out of the box, cost bears absolutely no rational relationship to quality in the realm of food. Why? I may be a great amateur baker, fisherman, hunter, whatever you like. Perhaps I live in a town with 18 bakeries, and I make better bread than any of them. Perhaps I pull shrimp and crabs out of the salt-water creek that flows past my dock. (Indeed, I once did in a past life.) i shoot my own pheasant, grouse and hare. Or maybe I am an Iranian caviar gatherer and get to take some home for free. A lot of dirt-poor people in coastal Louisiana eat better than you and I do on average, Steve, because they are hunter-gatherers and can take almost every day better raw ingredients than you or I can buy. Crabs, shrimp, crawfish, oysters, fish, game. (Well, I am living in Italy, so I might be stretching a bit, but there surely is no jumbo lump crabmeat to be had here.) Point, set, match Klapp. More to come on the subject of pasta…
Bill none of those things have to do with the craft of cooking. Cooking, at its highest level, is not a function of folklore that has been handed down from one generation to another. It is a highly practiced craft that takes hours to learn, and one can only learn how to do it by attending a cooking school or by working in a top kitchen. Someone who pulls a catfish out of a creek simply does not have the culinary technique to compete with someone who understands cooking both as a craft and a science. As a result, cost matters because when we go to a place like Piazza Duomo for dinner, what we are paying for is the chef’s ability to practice his craft, not his ability to pull fish out of the local river. Anyone can do that. But few chefs can create a dish using a local fish, that revolutionizes cuisine, and that chefs all over the world want to copy.