Teich.Net :: All In

Because I stopped eating meat around age six, I never really learned the vocabulary, in English or any other language. I learned enough to know which foods to avoid, but that was about it. Two Spanish words in particular I thought were interesting:

Ojo de Bife = “Eye of beef.” This has absolutely nothing to do with big gushy cow’s eyeballs, as I originally thought. Nope. It’s ribeye.

Bife de Chorizo = Rump steak Porterhouse/loin steak. No chorizo sausage involved.

Turns out both are really tasty, though perhaps in more moderation than a dining-out-daily-in-Argentina diet supports: enjoying steak is one thing; craving it for daily consumption is a level neither of us has quite reached.

I’m sorry it has been so long since I have posted. It’s not for want of interesting food and wine experiences. Life has just gotten in the way of blogging of late… Some of the highlights from the last few months include:

• Noteworthy meals in London (Origin, Mela…)
• Two phenomenal tasting menus at Quince (it remains one of my Bay Area favorites)
• An excellent birthday dinner at Manresa that included a garden “salad” unlike anything I’ve ever had
• A first-time visit to “Two” (the reinterpretation of Hawthorne Lane) that, despite a few pleasantly surprising dishes that mostly came from the pasta and pizza section of the menu, didn’t leave us rushing for a return visit; the wines brought by our companions at that meal, on the other hand, still have us drooling
• A serendipitous cancellation at The French Laundry…

In other news:

• I’ve upped the ante on last year’s six tomato plants with ten now crammed into my relatively small vegetable bed this year, albeit it might much mightier Texas Tomato Cages. All three on the shadiest end are already huge; one at the opposite end is doing quite well; the rest in the middle are still a bit stumpy. Odd…
• And last but not least: Thursday was my last day at Yahoo!. It was a difficult decision and a sad goodbye for now. However, I am thrilled to be joining, starting tomorrow, a very cool startup called Aggregate Knowledge. More to come…

I’ve been weighed down recently by guilt. A lot of it. I feel guilty about failing to find enough time to post here about goings-on. I feel guilty that Indy is so sweet and happy, even though he is desperate for more exercise today. I feel guilty about all the things that don’t get done at work every day, even with the already-long hours that compound my guilt in every other area. The list goes on…

With all this guilt (I even feel guilty about my present inability to come up with a good-sounding synonym for guilt), I was going to end with a joke involving rosaries, Hail Mary’s, and the odds of turning Catholic, but I realize now that I’m exhausted and not so confident that any attempts at religious humor would actually come across as more funny than offensive.

Instead, here’s something constructive:

Coming soon on All In: Cool stuff to do in Montreal, or at least more about Brunoise than “yum!” — that much I’ll give you now; stories from a chocolate and tea tasting press event I had the privileges of attending tonight at Charles Chocolates.

Fun for Indy: We just played some soccer with an abandoned basketball at the school; I had no idea he could dribble!

Work: Writing this doesn’t help and I’m going back in a moment to the presentation I need to finish preparing for tomorrow, but I am resigned to the fact that this area won’t improve until I stop caring or we get more people.

Here’s hoping Oren swoops in to rescue All In with an exciting dispatch from Japan.

We have been debating how best to handle restaurant ratings on All In for a long time. We nearly launched a rather complex and novel system in late ‘05 [edit] that addressed the issue of directly comparing very different experiences [/edit], but I never quite came to terms with some of the specifics. Becks & Posh’s new system inspired me to pick up the project again. We’ve finally agreed that adoping a simple and familiar rating notation makes sense. And, as an individual reviewer, it may be better to paint in broad strokes.

We will be using a 5 star rating system on All In, as follows:

The best

Excellent

Very good

Good

Passable

Bad

[edit] These terms are intentionally generic. A rating should reflect some intersection of the quality of ingredients and preparation, presentation, service, ambiance, value, expectations, and more (though not all of those factors are always relevant). There are absolutely things that are better about the best multi-course meal than street food or casual fare. If that weren’t true, why pay many times the price? That makes it hard to compare individual attributes. However, all types of food and restaurants can induce wonderful feelings, pleasant surprise, and even awe. (You may notice that not everything in our Best Foods list comes from a fancy restaurant.) Rather than trying to ignore the inherently subjective nature of judging the way the elements of a meal come together, we have decided instead to embrace our feelings about how everything comes together as a whole and capture them in words and, for brevity and clarity, stars. Clarity, you ask? Sometimes details can obsure the big picture — look to the stars for a summation.

You may also notice that there are no degrees of bad in this scale. I don’t often write about places that are bad, unless they are truly awful, in which case I don’t want to give them any stars at all. It seems a bit cruel to call out by just how much a place doesn’t make the grade. (In school, there is no F-.) As such, you will see 0 stars for a place that we would never recommend and we’ll leave it at that. [/edit]

Since I sometimes like to share initial impressions of a place without the authority of multiple visits and there are places that I love that don’t necessarily have outstanding food, you’ll also see one of the following symbols for the number of times one or both of us have eaten at a restaurant:

As part of this process, I’ve revamped the restaurant reviews index as the new All In :: Restaurant Guide, which includes ratings for several restaurants we haven’t actually gotten around to reviewing here. Our list of Restaurants to Try has also gotten too long as we’ve crossed many off over time, so spots we’ve tried will be moved over to the Restaurant Guide. There are many ratings and reviews to add, so check back for updates over the next few days. [edit] Ratings may also change with additional visits - additional experiences and dates will be noted. [/edit]

We’re still considering adding some additional details and want to make the ratings, reviews, and lists and useful as possible. Thoughts and suggestions welcome!

The world is full of crazy ideas. One of the latest: Dinner in the Sky: dining for 22 at 50 meters above the ground. They’ll even set if up at your castle, if you happen to have one, starting at a mere 7,500 Euros, without the food. For a few grand more you can get a second platform for an orchestra, piano, or to hold a shiny new car to admire.

Being a huge fan of The Botany of Desire, when I heard a recent interview on NPR about an new book by Michael Pollan, I immediately ordered it.

Following four meals literally from start to finish, it provides an amazing insight into the way the american food industry works.  From corn and it’s life, to the meaning and value of organics in an industrialized food production world, he brings a wonderful and informative view on how our food makes it’s way to our stomachs.

I’m now about 1/3 of the way through the book, and felt compelled to post something about it immediately. I don’t know where to begin frankly. It’s so packed with interesting/scary information that any place I start makes me simply want to copy some pages straight. Kate @ the Accidental Hedonist has opened my eyes to the world of HFCS, but I didn’t understand just how strongly tied to corn we were until I read the first meal: a fast food dinner eaten while driving in a car.
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The last few months have been a blur. We had back-to-back product launches requiring a whole lot of work, we’ve traveled, we’ve bonded with our new dog Indy, I’ve started a new vegetable garden, and, of course, we’ve eaten. I’ll be playing catch-up on All In on some of the last few months’ adventure as time allows, and look forward to being back with you for the future. I’ve missed you all!

We always sort of expected that when we got a dog, it would be some type of retriever and that, as with most labs and goldens, it would love food. It would have been appropriate.
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I’m not usually a huge fan of Robert Mondavi for the same reasons that I don’t hold any special affection for many mass market companies, but at least with volume come the benefits of a sizeable marketing budget. I haven’t typically been all that impressed with Mondavi’s output in that department either–though obviously it works–but when a site comes along that offers enough genuinely interesting and useful content to make the marketing message palatable and cast the product in a better light, you have to tip your hat.
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In addition to finally giving our blog a real name - a little odd, I know, but it’s not really about any one thing - we’ve updated the look and added a new feature: look, down the right side as little ways… Lists! Want to add a suggestion to our To Dos? Looking for a list of something else? Let us know!