It is hard to know where to even begin with Steve’s arguments. Steve is convinced that expense is highly correlated with greatness. I don’t think that a 3 star restaurant is generally a pure representation of a cultures cuisine. So often this is where people with extensive training and exposure to many food cultures create their own interpretation of great food in a very elaborate setting. Great cuisine to me is often the result of specialization. Often one family has been specializing in one or a few dishes for generations. They will not be as good at preparing a broad range of foods as typical 3 star chef, but they can often exceed them in their specialty. The French too have their regional cuisine, which can be quite diverse and often executed most proficiently in their local of origin.
Japanese cuisine is a classic example of people taking what was at one time the main food available to them (fish and rice) and working over many years to perfect their preparation. The Italians like the Chinese have many generations devoted to making perfect noodles. Rice and noodles are both inexpensive forms of starch, and all three cultures are known to serve a little bit of protein with their starch, yet you somehow argue the Japanese method to vastly superior.
Chinese people do care about rice quality, and those who can often will pay much more for the rice they prefer. If you really value how expensive a meal is, you would be very pleased to dine in China. It would be trivial to spend $100 on a meal contrary to what you seem to believe. You could spend over $100 on a cup of tea if you wanted to pay for the most valued leaves with the most skilled drying and preparation. Like the rest of the world they too have incredible ingredients and amazing execution in the kitchen, and people are willing to pay to have the best.
I think more than anything these cuisines are different. You prefer French 3 star cuisine, there is certainly nothing wrong with that.
No I disagree with you. Only cause I’ve been part of ultra high end Chinese dinners that hold the same standards as Japanese sushi/Kaiseki. It’s just so much of Chinese food is inexpensive doesn’t mean that the Chinese are ignorant of fine dining. In China and Taiwan I’ve gone to multiple $300/pp meals that are strictly chinese food, executed in the style of fine dining that you appreciate. That cuisine just hasn’t traveled broadly to the United States. Why? I’m not sure.
I’ve only been to one now defunct restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley that is remotely close to that. I guess one could argue that WP24 is kinda similar in striving for the finest ingredients for Chinese food, but it’s not really what I"m thinking about. It’s more Kaiseki style. I’ll have to ask my mom the restaurant names, I’ll have to see if there is a possible english translation… been a few years.
Doug, this is great. You’ve stepped right into the gutter and started spewing insults. Present an argument or move on. Bill Klapp presents a counterpoint and I suspect that he and Steve will never find a middle ground. That said, he continues to put forth an articulate POV.
Okay let’s see. I come back from the Rangers losing 2-1 to the Lightning and I have to respond to the following:
BJ Hamel - You have my thesis slightly wrong. I don’t believe that greatness is correlated with expense. I believe that greatness is correlated with craftsmanship. But as a practical matter, craftsmanship is labor and time intensive so a high level of craftsmanship typically comes at a high price. But expense is not a predicate to greatness. There are many great things that come with little or no expense. However, that is rarely the case when discussing something that someone needs professional training in order to do properly. That is where Bill Klapp and I disagree. You are also slightly off about my thesis about Chinese versus Japanese dining culture. As you have noted about expensive teas, the Chinese have the capacity to engage in the same pursuit of excellence as the Japanese. What I have said is that their pursuit of excellence is not as big a part of their dining culture as it is for the Japanese. And that is the reason why Japanese cuisine is more evolved (in general) than Chinese cuisine The Japanese simply care more about food than the Chinese do, and that permeates every aspect of the dining culture. And the reason they care about it more is because on a per capita basis they are wealthier, which means they have the leisure time and discretionary income to spend time understanding the difference between things that would be unimportant to other people. Which of course brings me back to my original thesis: The determinative quality in cuisine is craftsmanship, and a high level of craftsmanship comes with an expensive price tag because it depends on people with a high level of training.
Charlie Fu - I am not disputing that a $300 Chinese meal exists. But that does not make the overall dining culture in China the equivalent of what it is in Japan or France. Let me give you an example. When I added Japanese restaurants to my dining survey this year, fifteen people submitted reviews of Ryugin in Tokyo. I could not believe how many people reviewed it. Everyone who reviewed it lived in either Europe or North America, and travelled specifically to Japan for the purpose of eating. There is not an equivalent group of people who are travelling to Hong Kong, Taiwan or mainland China just to eat, and there is no restaurant in any of those places that people absolutely have to try the way they have to try Ryugin. And the reason for that is that China does not have the same type of dining culture that Japan has. If you like beef, you can visit Tokyo and sample Kobe beef from 9 different prefectures, with 5 grades of quality within each type. Or I can go to a multitude of sushi restaurants and be served nine different cuts of tuna, each one coming from a different part of the fish, five different types of uni and seven different types of salmon. That type of specificity is typical in the Japanese dining experience, but rare in the Chinese experience.
Bill Klapp - I will ignore the invective and restate the only question I have directed towards you. Do you agree or disagree that craftsmanship is something that can be objectively measured?
Mike - Ssshh about the trust fund. Hardly anyone knows that my father, who was the only member of his family not to be exterminated at Treblinka, and who earned a living as the owner of a kosher butcher shop after coming to America penniless, left me a large inheritance of Hebrew National hot dogs.
We lived in Europe when I was young and my dad ate in most of the top restaurants in Paris at the time. He liked them very much, but whenever we discussed it later he told me if I wanted to eat great French food I should go to the one-stars.
Craig Gleason - There used to be some truth to what your father told you. But the one star restaurant in France has become a shadow of what it used to be. There are a lot of reasons for that, mostly to do with the French economy and with what young French people want to do in order to earn a living. Other people would say it is due to the fact that the EU agricultural rules destroyed French farming. But the grand regional dining experience that was the backbone of French cuisine has basically disappeared, and that is what the good one star restaurants excelled in. It has affected all tiers of French dining. I love choucroute but I struggle to find a place in Paris where it isn’t made in a commissary and then delivered to the restaurant by truck.
Really Charlie? I see you are in LA. I have visited Urasawa; Bar Nozawa; Matsuhisa; Nishimura; Mori Sushi; Sushi Zo; Totoraku and N’Naka and I have spent between $150-$250 per person on an omakase at each place. Is there a Chinese restaurant in LA that offers something similar? I have been to many of the top Chinese restaurants in East LA (Elite being my favorite), and I never came upon a single one that offered an experience at that level.
Or maybe we can approach this another way. The top Japanese restaurants in the U.S. have a large percentage of their fish flown in from Tokyo. Even in a place like Portland, Maine, which is the commercial fishing capital of the U.S., the top sushi restaurant told me that 60% of their fish is flown in from Japan. Is there a Chinese restaurant that does something similar where they fly in ingredients of exceptionally high quality from China because they are not available in the U.S.? How about utensils? Take a place like Korin where they sell Suisin knives. Is there a Chinese cooking utensil manufacturer with a US location where I might run into Tom Colicchio or Jean George while they are buying a $2000 knife? Or how about something simple like identifying the source of the ingredients you are serving. Can you tell me a single Chinese restaurant where they tell you the source of the ingredients they serve? I would love to eat at a Chinese restaurant that offered that level of specificity. Is it that I can’t find them or is it that they do they not exist?
Steve, this is where it all ended last time and it saddens me. From a historical perspective Japanese food is fundamentally a very minor offshoot of the great Chinese traditions, no matter what restaurant guides may indicate. Your research is based on occidental restaurants, which is a very partial perspective though I know it is one of great interest to you, quite reasonably. I don’t think you’d feel happy passing judgment on the whole of French cuisine without your substantial knowledge of restaurants in that country. You need to go, with,importantly, a good guide(I mean a person/people), to Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. Chinese cuisine has no interest whatever in reaching out to us in the west, one needs to go in search of it.
For those who don’t know Steve he is a very perceptive consumer of food and wine. This may not be immediately obvious in this thread.
Mr. Plopnicke, please be courteous enough to properly spell the names of Mr. “Baykin” and Mr. “Knapp”…that would be “Boykin” and “Klapp”, respectively. Otherwise, people might mistake the serial misspellings of the names of your adversaries as the oft-seen denial/avoidance strategy of narcissists and the otherwise self-absorbed, calculated to dismiss critics rather than address the substance of their criticisms, and I feel sure that you would not want any of the readers here to get that impression of you. The long-awaiting response to your burning question posed to me to come…
Tom, I agree with your last assertion, at least to some extent, but that notion is rarely immediately apparent in Steve’s case, because his actual knowledge can be shockingly thin or absent altogether outside his rather narrow area of interest. I understand that it seems a bit odd to claim narrowness with respect to a guy who allegedly eats out 300 days a year, but think about it: he champions a French haut cuisine in decline for a long time now (see Mike Steinberger’s outstanding book on the subject, “Au Revoir To All Of That”), what with the game-changing exploits of Adria and his progeny, the coming of age of American haut cuisine (I suppose), the suicides of great french chefs and many other factors, and yet foolishly claims that Italy’s cuisine is not among the world’s greatest, in the face of crushing weight of opinion to the contrary, including Michelin and Veronelli, the guides that are the very basis for his own high standards. (Of course, Gambero Rosso, Osterie d’Italia and the L’Espresso guide are infinitely more current, relevant and valuable than Michelin or Veronelli, but Steve would not, of course, know that.) Also, Parker tastes 10,000 wines a year (or did), makes his bones with his Bordeaux reviews and then drinks magnums of Chateauneuf-du-Pape with sushi, so I am not sure that experience alone can be said to be reliable without more.
Steve essentially views great food, something that exists in infinite variety, as something that exists only in the tiny sampling, relatively speaking, of dining rooms of the “craftsmen” that he chooses to frequent. That does not render his commentary on those restaurants without merit. However, it does result in his perspective on the larger world of food to be judged uninformed to the point of ignorance, and he apparently cannot or will not do anything to defend against that charge. Along with addressing several of his pet notions here (which I will attempt to address fairly later on), he has treated the audience to huge, unvarnished displays of culinary ignorance. He does not seem to understand that it invariably results in people throwing out his small but sometimes cute, dominantly French haut cuisine baby with a sea of bathwater polluted by his self-absorbed blathering about things he knows nothing about. Like somebody else I know, his pompous, self-righteous manner never helps. (I am speaking, of course, of Jeff Leve, not myself! )
Russell, what have you found to be the best beef in Europe? I no longer eat a lot of beef, but like any American ex-pat, I will hanker for a huge, charcoaled hunk of prime, well-aged beef, and would probably be willing to travel around Europe to find it. Andrea, you should weigh in on this also. To me, the aging is key, and I see no evidence in my neighborhood that aging carries much value here…
Bill, best for steak, personally I like those sourced from O’Sheas (though I’ve lost track of the split between tho two founders), and Ginger Pig. That’s in London, outside there are a large number of decent butchers but it becomes very region specific.
I haven’t lived in the UK for two years so might be out of touch.
Off course steak is just one method, for casseroles, daubed etc one wants something different and I find grass fed much better suited for depth of flavour.
Tom Blach - You and I are talking at cross purposes. I am not offering any commentary on the history of Chinese versus Japanese cuisine as a historical study. I am offering an explanation as to why Japan currently has a vibrant dining scene that attracts international diners, and why China/Taiwan/Hong Kong can not claim the same. And it is not that I am disinterested in their vivid history, or do not see their food in that context. it’s just that the current iteration of their cuisine does not generally include the type of quest for excellence that I, and other people in the food world, are looking for. Post WWII reconstruction in Japan created a strong upper middle class and the current dining scene in Japan is a product of their ability to spend discretionary income. Meanwhile China was a communist country that had a cultural revolution that abandoned many important traditions. Now if you want to argue that I should value a $10 bowl of low mein as much as a gyoza stuffed with Kurabota pork that comes from a specific location, and I am ignorant to feel otherwise. we are talking at cross purposes. The specific hobby that I practice is to follow the progress of culinary technique and culture. And traditional recipes that are not improved or updated are not part of that hobby. You look at cuisine as a static thing. I do not. I see it like fashion where the only thing that is important is what the designers have done this year.
This is why these conversations are always so tortured. You, Bill, and others here, want to disqualify my point of view. If you
want to find an appropriate adjective to describe the way you think about people who feel like I do, just scan this thread and pick one of the adjectives that were used that has a negative connotation. But what is silly about your position is that in the world of food, you are outliers. No one cares about how you guys feel about it. There is no intellectual discussion that presents your position, and there is not a single piece of literature I can think of that validates your position. There used to be during a time when restaurants like Le Gavroche and Taillevent were important. But they are dusty old dresses at this point and the type of people who frequent those places are far closer to retirement than not.
One of the key indicia that an art or craft is interesting is that there is a secondary intellectual discussion that is organized around that topic. This forum is evidence that this is true for wine. So when I use the term “important” that is what I mean. And there is a vibrant discussion in cuisine that is going on. And I assure you that the discussion looks at cuisine through a prism that is pretty much in line with the one I use. What I am trying to figure out is, why do people like you and Bill feel comfortable dismissing that discussion as idiotic or even wrongheaded? Do you think everyone involved in the discussion is wrong? I mean I am a movie buff, and I have very strong opinions about why movies are good and bad. But my knowledge is not at the level to be able to discuss a film with a bunch of film directors and movie reviewers. They have an understanding of the topic that I have yet to learn. But I feel no need to belittle them, tell them they are idiots etc. I am open to the fact that they bring a more rigorous standard to the discussion then I do, and I hope to learn something as a result. And I am certainly willing to admit that the larger discussion about film is outside my sphere of knowledge.
During this thread, Bill Knapp had ample opportunities to name a few restaurants that would make me feel differently. Charlie Fu had the opportunity to do it with Chinese food. Neither person took the opportunity. Instead they offered a deluge against my intellect and character. And if you unpack their arguments, what you will find is the following: That despite the fact that I have a stated hobby, and despite the fact that my practice of the hobby is part of a larger discussion of cuisine that is going on worldwide, and despite the fact that I personally play a role in that discussion, I should feel differently about cuisine? It’s a crazy, crazy position that can not be borne out of any rational analysis. Like Tom Puricelli said, it is one thing to not be interested in something. But because you are not interested in it, or have a different point of view, does not mean that it does not exist, or that the philosophy it espouses is not determinative in the larger discussion about that hobby.
