[LML]

Molecular Gastronomy: Its flat denial of the ineffable has yet to be demonstrated. Instead what we have is reductionist vocabulary of scientism that allows anyone who scans the food press to posture as as gourmet. Ultimately, it is text over experience.

Restaurants with Laboratories: The insinuation that prior chefs who didn't have laboratories didn't actually test their dishes before putting them on the menu is monumentally arrogant. Those that have believed this lie deserve to live out their days eating from pipettes.

The Internet: One would imagine that the internet would have been good for diners. Instead it has allowed a handful of highly motivated, but gastronomically retarded, individuals to force their stupidity on the rest of the stupid individuals stupid enough to receive their stupidity as wisdom.

The English Language: Linguistic predominance of English in cyberspace has resulted in gastronomic Orientalism.

Restaurant PR: When the same PR company handles restaurants and the British Labour Party you know, or at least you should know, that you are being lied to.

Jonathan Meades: Stopped reviewing UK restaurants at the turn of the millennium thereby creating a vacuum that has been filled by the most horrendous scrotes and cronies ever visited against a gastronomically developing nation.

[LML]

Chef Symposia: Nothing wrong with a bunch of chefs getting together for a chat, but it's the measure of earnest importance given events like Madrid Fusion by dilettante attendees that makes me want to rip someone's face off.

[g.johnson]

I left the UK before Meades began reviewing restaurants so all I know of his food writing is his description of the soggy biscuit.

[Cathy]

Chef Symposia: Nothing wrong with a bunch of chefs getting together for a chat, but it's the measure of earnest importance given events like Madrid Fusion by dilettante attendees that makes me want to rip someone's face off.

Agreed! Reminds me of the eG Symposium.

[g.johnson]

And the autofelching machine.

[LML]

I left the UK before Meades began reviewing restaurants so all I know of his food writing is his description of the soggy biscuit.

Suffice to say that despite his familiarity with outré boys' games, he had excellent taste. Not at all like that cunt, Jay Rayner, who has no interest in food, but only what food can do for his career.

[LML]

Chef Symposia: Nothing wrong with a bunch of chefs getting together for a chat, but it's the measure of earnest importance given events like Madrid Fusion by dilettante attendees that makes me want to rip someone's face off.

Agreed! Reminds me of the eG Symposium.

The nadir of eG was the eGCI. A clutch of ignorami bent on forcing their limited experience of the kitchen down the throats of anyone retarded enough to believe: Read On!

[yvonne johnson]

Toby Young.

[splinky]

And the autofelching machine.

felching accident nsfw

[GG Mora]

And the autofelching machine.

felching accident nsfw

I actually knew a guy named Richard Felch, who had the temerity to use the common sobriquet for his first name.

[flyfish]

And the autofelching machine.

felching accident nsfw

I actually knew a guy named Richard Felch, who had the temerity to use the common sobriquet for his first name.

I knew of a Richard, surname Weed, with the same predilection.

[Suzanne F]

Chef Symposia: Nothing wrong with a bunch of chefs getting together for a chat, but it's the measure of earnest importance given events like Madrid Fusion by dilettante attendees that makes me want to rip someone's face off.

But charging anyone who is not a "working chef" $495 for a couple of days of it is beyond the beyond (StarChefs).

[Wilfrid]

Meades was good; his intelligence broader than the job required - no bad thing - and he could, and doubtless still can, write.

Speaking locally, molecular gastronomy isn't the problem. Both regular diners and critics in New York have vigorously rejected it for the most part. We are faced with a quite different nadir: the supposition that if casual picnic or seaside food is cooked really well from really expensive ingredients, any more elaborate engagement with gastronomy can safely be abandoned, or even regarded as a cleverly foiled European plot.

And so we drown in reinvented burgers, meatloaf sandwiches, reservation-only fried chicken dinners, fusion barbecue, inexplicable hot dogs, high end mac'n'cheese, and every conceivable incarnation of bacon. We dine not like geeks but like toddlers.

ETA:

The English Language: Linguistic predominance of English in cyberspace has resulted in gastronomic Orientalism.

Yes, that's a very good point.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Michael Bauer's Decade of Review - Top Ten Trends

Dining in the first decade of the new century can be seen as a period of extremes and contradictions - the almost mystical allure of artisanal products on one side, and the rise of what some call molecular gastronomy on the other. The first lets the ingredient itself shine - chefs do just enough to the ingredient to enhance it. The second emphasizes technique - chefs manipulate the ingredient to change its form into something new.

The Internet has transformed the service industry and given consumers more power than we've ever had before. High-end chefs are turning to low-end fare, and have given pizza, pig ears and pork belly exalted status.

Looking back over the past 10 years, here's what I think we'll remember:

1. Artisan pizza. It used to be that when you wanted pizza, you went to a pizza parlor or ordered from Round Table. Now highly regarded chefs are throwing pies at places like Pizzaiolo in Oakland and A16 in San Francisco. Other high-end restaurants have opened nearby offshoots dedicated to pizza, such as Picco in Larkspur and Delfina in San Francisco.

2. Salumi. Restaurants are going whole hog for these ancient artisan curing methods. This trend was fueled by Paul Bertolli, who left Oliveto after more than a decade as chef to start Fra Mani in 2005. Now the trend has gone viral at places such as Incanto and Spruce in San Francisco and Adesso in Oakland.

3. Cocktails. We used to be a wine-driven culture, where "cocktail" meant a martini, scotch and soda, margarita or Cosmo if we were daring. Today almost every new restaurant has a full-blown cocktail menu, and bartenders have become "bar chefs." Top examples include Slanted Door and Beretta (pizza and cocktails) in San Francisco, Flora in Oakland, and Cyrus in Healdsburg.

4. Small plates. This homegrown trend has spread across the country and changed how we eat. Even traditional restaurants now offer many more appetizers. The best places to sample the small-plates way of eating include Bocadillos in San Francisco, A Cote in Oakland and Zuzu in Napa. Food for thought: Why are small plates always "meant to be shared," and large plates aren't?

5. Sustainable, organic and local. Alice Waters' ideas have gone mainstream. The decade's most-used phrase on restaurant menus: "We use sustainable, organic and local products whenever possible." The tentacles of this trend have led to the decline of bottled water sales and the rise of single-source, fair-trade, locally roasted coffee.

6. Celebrity chefs. We've always had Wolfgang Puck, but in this era of "Top Chef," "Iron Chef" and chef-penned cookbooks, chefs are increasingly defined by their television appearances. If they're cooking on television, they probably aren't cooking in their restaurants, but diners don't seem to mind. Exception: TV's Michael Chiarello, who returned to the kitchen to open the popular Bottega in Yountville.

7. Casualization of dining and upgrading of street food. This is a twofold trend. Even places with $30 entrees are stripping off the tablecloths and doing away with formal uniforms; casual is in, even in the kitchen. Restaurants now search cultures for street food to put on upscale menus at places like the Slanted Door (Vietnamese) and Wexler's (barbecue).

8. Molecular gastronomy. The Bay Area hasn't fully embraced this technique, in which foams, gelees and dehydrated powders are ubiquitous, but it's still transformed the way many chefs look at food. The French Laundry's Thomas Keller extols the sous vide technique in his book "Under Pressure," and just about every restaurant is cherry-picking techniques pioneered by the Spanish chef Ferran Adria.

9. The Internet. Its impact on restaurants has been significant and wide-ranging. Yelp and other online forums have given everyone a chance at a critical voice. OpenTable is more than a reservation system - it's a way for restaurants to track customers. And Twitter has made it possible for restaurants and street vendors to contact customers at a moment's notice.

10. Communal table. As we've developed into a global village, personal contact might have become an unintended casualty - which could explain why restaurants have become places to meet. When LuLu opened in San Francisco in the early 1990s, it was the first modern restaurant to offer communal seating. Now the communal table is always full at places like Nopa, Flour+Water and Ubuntu.

[splinky]

i hate communal tables. sometimes i don't want to sit with the people in my group, let alone with a bunch of strangers