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A friend came by for dinner last night and we eventually started talking about his experience visiting The French Laundry, the iconic Yountville Thomas Keller restaurant. This morning, I opened up my browser and was greeted by a page from the The French Laundry website, left over from the evening:

Every day we create two unique nine-course tasting menus – chef’s tasting and a tasting of vegetables – each a series of smaller, focused dishes. No single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal. What we want you to experience is that sense of surprise when you taste something so new, so exciting, so comforting, so delicious, you think, “Wow” – and then it’s gone. We want the peak of sensation on the palate to be all that you feel. So we serve a series of small courses meant to excite your mind, satisfy your appetite and pique your curiosity. We want you to say, “I wish I had just one more bite of that.” And then the next plate arrives and the same thing happens, but in a different way, a whole new flavor and feel and emotion.

I found that description and mission to be incredibly compelling, not just as a (hopefully!) future customer, but for the business itself. The experience that French Laundry seeks to build for its customers is beyond excellence – it seeks to provide emotional stimulation in its work. Surprise. Curiosity. Longing.

If Thomas Keller’s more accessible restaurants (Bouchon, Ad Hoc) are any indication, I’m positive the dishes at French Laundry are unreal. But the craftspeople at French Laundry are really pursuing a mission more substantial and lasting than their employment and the quality of food that they prepare. The creations are just vessels for a deeper experience. And in that way, the institution becomes more meaningful than just the food that is plated.

I think we all want the work we pursue in life to be that meaningful. We want the pursuit to be more profound.

After months (years?) of talking about it, I ate at Range last Friday. I had tried to book reservations there at least four or five times previously on Open Table, but was denied repeatedly. So, of course, Ivy and I were able to walk in on Friday evening and immediately find two seats at the bar. Who knew!

The verdict? Fantastic.

The only dish that wasn’t superb (to me) was Ivy’s cod. The two appetizers we ordered were particularly great: mushroom-filled ravioli in a lemon-cream sauce and the perfectly-seared scallops. The lamb sirloin killed and our Hamacher Pinot Noir was a great pairing.

In an area with a lot of really great restaurants, I’d say Range was immediately in my top ten, and maybe better, without any outrageous shock when the check hit the table.

I was surfing around on Yelp the other day, and I stopped by to read a couple reviews of one of my favorite Chinese restaurants: Queen’s House (my review here). It’s a pretty fantastic place where you can feed an NFL offensive line for around $30. No, the food’s not necessarily what you would call “healthy” or “gourmet”. But hey, can you really argue with a good $5 bowl of beef noodle soup that will last you two meals?

Anyway, I was reading along until I started seeing some absolutely ridiculous reviews, like this one [side note: Don't order Kung Pao Chicken at a Chinese restaurant and then assume it is representative of the food. It's like tasting the ketchup from In-n-Out and declaring the whole chain awful. Plus you look stupid.]. There were even several reviews complaining about the service. The service! At a cheap Chinese restaurant! Ha!

For those of you that don’t know, there is one undeniable rule of Chinese restaurants and it is this:

Do not EVER eat at a Chinese restaurant that has good service if it has cheap prices. Never. Do not pass Go. Don’t even think about it.

A cheap Chinese restaurant that has good food is cheap for a reason – they are skimping on decor and service. I think the understanding that Chinese restaurants aren’t dressed up like Quince is fairly well-understood, but people don’t seem to understand that good Chinese restaurants don’t give a shit about your “holistic dining experience.” If they have good food, they have lots of customers, so their entire goal is to get your ass in and out as soon as possible. Period. I mean, c’mon, they’re Chinese! Of course they’re trying to optimize revenue!

So in summary, if you sit down at a Chinese restaurant that has cheap food and the waiter treats you with general disdain, there’s a chance you’re in a good spot. It’s even better if, instead of placing your plates of food onto the table, they bring them an inch or two off the table and drop-clatter-slide them to the middle [note: they will slide because the server wiped your table with a wet rag right in front of you after seating you, which was seconds after the last guy stood up].

And my gosh, if you walk into a cheap Chinese restaurant and the server seems attentive and courteous? Get the HELL out of there before you end up with the Chinese version of Montezuma’s Revenge.

Seriously.

For those of you wondering why I would have possibly gone to Portland a few months ago, nytimes.com has a great article about the prominence of Portland as a dining/drinking town now.

To be fair, I didn’t really know how good it would be until I got there, but the combination of great wine in the Willamette Valley, tremendous breweries, and fantastic restaurants turned out to be a lot of fun. It’s not laying on the beach drinking a margarita, but it’s good too.

last night i had one of those firsts that you’ll remember for the rest of your life: the first time your asian dad asks you for an opinion as an expert, trusted “friend.”

it was really a hallmark moment. he called me on the phone and the conversation went something like this:

dad: “hey jack. i’m at the mirage in las vegas.”

jack: “whoa, what?”

dad: “yeah. where can i find a good steakhouse around here?”

that’s right. of all of the numerous people in the world that my dad knows, he considers me the absolute trusted expert on steakhouses and (not only steakhouses, but also) las vegas. luckily he picked a topic that i know something about. just think, he could’ve messed up the moment by asking for steakhouses in austin, texas. or salad joints in las vegas. somehow, by some cosmic coincidence, he picked just the right combination to elicit a solid response by me. what’re the chances?

today: steakhouses in las vegas. tomorrow: how to achieve world peace.

p.s. in case you’re wondering, i said Smith & Wollensky or The Palm.

1 comment

Fringale
570 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
http://www.fringalesf.com

i used to live at 821 folsom st., which is right on the corner of 4th and Folsom in the city. while i lived up there, i would occasionally hear about this basque-french restaurant that was down the street from my apartment, but i never got around to checking it out. it took a couple of years and moving 30 miles away to finally go.

ivy and i started making use of the SF Dine About Town program last night by taking a quick jaunt up to the city for a nice, reasonable prix fixe meal at fringale. if you don’t know about dine about town, and live around san francisco, you’re missing out because a number of really good restaurants participate. go ahead and take a look at that link above. i’ll wait.

anyhow, the restaurant turned out to be pretty good. it’s a tiny place (10 tables?) with cozy mood lighting on an industrial block of SOMA and was littered with asian(-american) people. clearly other cheap asians were looking to get a reasonably-priced meal as well.

the food was good, not great. i had a rib eye cooked with some bizarre red-orangish tomato butter on it and some fries (STRAIGHT from in-n-out, i swear) on the side. immediately upon looking at the steak i knew i probably made a poor choice. the byproduct of eating at so many nice steakhouses over the past few years is that your enjoyment of a mediocre steak goes straight to the tubes. ivy had the lamb and that appeared to be far superior.

we also sprung the extra cash for an order of their wild mushroom risotto to share and that was probably the culinary highlight of the evening with its nice texture and ingredients. then again, we both have a soft spot for risotto because it’s fucking awesome.

the chocolate gourmand for dessert is definitely recommended.

all in all it was a good meal and a really nice experience. good place for couples or dates. probably not great for big groups. looking over the regular menu, most of the prices looked reasonable ($18-28 main dishes) and our wines by the glass were decent.

a nice 7 out of 10.