Don't take dining advice from strangers

I got email from OpenTable, asking if I'd take part in a user experience survey. Happy to help (and curious to see what they're plotting), I worked through a bunch of questions about booking a table through the site.

Toward the end of the survey was a list of future enhancements. What would you like to see on the site, they asked. One choice was "customer reviews."

No, I said. No, no, a dozen times no.

I know, that's what it's all about today: the interactivity. The social media. The Interwebs 2.0. Of course they have to consider it. And a site dedicated to helping people decide where to eat--well, that's a natural place to build community. What's more user-friendly than allowing people to share opinions about dining options?

Um, how about asking people to keep their opinions to themselves?

Don't get me wrong: I love finding out about new places. Tell me you celebrated a birthday, or spent a day on the North Shore, or took a trip to Chicago, and I'll ask, "Where did you eat?"

But I don't look for dining advice from people who post user comments.

Allow me to illustrate. This is a selection of remarks about an Italian chain:

"We've enjoyed their food for years [...] it is delicious food and lots of it at great prices with fast and friendly service. "

"Service is slow, food served luke warm, overpriced ..."

"... huge portions of pretty good italian food. I've eaten there several times and the food is always fresh and tasty ..."

"What a huge pile of garbage. True, they give you enough food to feed an army, but who wants to eat any of that overcooked, preheated slop??"

See what I mean? One man's taste sensation is another man's pig swill. The only consistent observation here is that portions are gargantuan. Service, ingredients and pricing are all in flux.

Okay, fine. Maybe it's not fair to expect a unanimous chorus of praise for a pile-'em-high family-dining chain like Vinny T's. But what about a small, independent bistro?

"The wait staff was attentive but not hovering. The food and its presentation were both sublime."

"Food was average and their attempt to make something extraordinary and fun [...] was very disapointing. The flavours were not at all complementing each other, if there were any flavours or taste what so ever."

"I felt we should have left the restaurant feeling satistfied. The only reason I wouldn't give this restaurant a 5 is the portions sizes, the food was excellent."

Food good! Food bad! Food good but insufficient!

At least the above restaurants have enough reviews to create a fairly meaningful average; the more comments there are, the easier it is to see which way the scale is tipping.

But what happens when there are only two posts--and a 50-50 split? For instance, if you were checking out a new place, how would these two opinions help you decide?

"Quite simply a hidden gem in Jamaica Plain. I have dined here 3 times and the meals and service have been outstanding. "

"This place is terrible. The portions are small and overpriced. The room is tiny, overcrowded and noisy. The waiter was slow and sweated on my food and on my wife."

As these last two illustrate, one reason to stay away from user comments is that they tend to illustrate extreme points of view. Whether the experience was magical or appalling, it motivated these diners to sit down and write a report.

Add to that the concept of participation inequality--that, as my man Jakob Nielsen explains, only 1% of online community members post frequently, whereas 90% are lurkers who never post at all--and you get a see-through sliver of a sample size.

When the people speak, don't listen to them.

That's the detailed version of my response to the question. On the survey, however, the only note of my dissent was a checked radio button.

But tell me: am I over-reacting? Is a little community input a bad thing?

(Oh. See what I'm doing here? I'm asking for user comments! Talk about hypocrisy!)

Hey Cookthink—think fast

Every now and again, I'll get a food memory: a sudden recollection of a particular dish that makes my mouth water. (Other people get this too, right? Right??)

It often happens when I think about real proper fish 'n' chips. I can almost feel the oily sweetness of the batter.

Hey, don't knock it unless you've tried it.

And recently I was trying to remember what was so good about the unexpectedly excellent rabbit stew I had at Vinny's at Night (an evening recounted here by the fabulous Scurvyann) when suddenly it hit me on the sides of my tongue: balsamic vinegar.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes I just get a good old-fashioned craving for ... umm ... something lemony, or a good fresh crunchy thing, or a bowl of spicy stuff with ginger and garlic--but I can't necessarily decipher what it should be.

So I was excited to discover Cookthink, a tool that, allegedly, helps you narrow your tastebuds' desires to a single recipe. Choose from the tagcloud of cravables (by ingredient, dish, cuisine and mood) or add your own, and it will serve up the how-to for a dish to assuage your hunger.

So it claims.

First I tried honey - souffle - French - elegant, and it suggested Savory Egg Custard with Cheese. Delicious, I'm sure. But not only is this not a sweet dish, as I'd hoped (I'da thought the honey would have been a dead giveaway), the recipe doesn't even include honey.

Next I put in mango - breakfast - charming - European to see how it would cope--and got Kielbasa and White Bean Soup. Huh??

Avocado - poultry - Tex-Mex - fresh means Creamy Marjoram Vinaigrette.

Does. Not. Compute.

So, okay, I thought, I'll toss it a softball. Underhand. Slow-pitch.

Cinnamon - cream - rice - American - traditional.

Rice pudding, right?

Nope: Shrimp Bisque.

Well, it does have cream in it.

In fairness, the Cookthink blog does note that they're not going to include dessert recipes immediately. But still, wouldn't you expect at least a risotto of sorts?

Not that every attempt was a dud: red wine - one pot - French - satisfying produced a hearty coq au vin recipe. And attempts to mess with its head backfired pleasantly: beef-vegetarian-Indian-fishy produced a tasty-looking Indian-style beef and sweet potato dish.

But some of the choices are strange (who "craves" all-purpose flour? Or cornstarch? Or peanut oil?) and some are close in philosophy but seem to miss the point of the craving (if I'm jonesing for plum tomatoes, don't offer me a tomato-free chicken, broccoli and parmesan dish).

And the straightforward search function needs some tweaking; attempts to rediscover the aforementioned coq au vin recipe brought up everything from Simple Vegetarian Borscht to Baba Ghanoush, but not the dish I was seeking.

So as a compendium of recipes, this looks pretty cool--nice user interface, cute javascript pop-ups and clearly written, creative, intriguing recipes. The whole thing has a nice tone. The content speaks to me (and says "make me! Eat me!").

But I have to wonder whether this isn't a case of style over substance; can they get past the functionality glitches to serve up a site that delivers on its promise?

Or would their users be better served by (gasp!) a Food Network-style categorization, which may not be cool, but at least allows people to actually find the recipes they're looking for?

All fried up

Today, on a whim, we drove out to The Big E, an expo that brings the farmers, crafters, vendors and carnies of the six New England states together in one place for the educational, homemade-soap-need-fulfilling, artery-clogging benefit of the general public.

We saw purebred Guernsey cows, insane-looking sheep, alpacas and llamas (not, apparently, the same thing). We saw baby chicks hatching, bees dancing in their hive and a whole passel of Clydesdales.

We watched old ladies spinning wool, little girls showjumping on ponies and a guy carving a wooden bear sculpture with a chainsaw.

And then we wandered around the midway, which was almost hallucinatory in its sensory-overload layers of color and sound, and watched people being flung through the air, rotated at high speeds, jerked in unnatural directions and generally terrified for their enjoyment.

And in between all of this, we ate.

Our first rule of fairground food: it should be something you can't get at home. So no french fries, no hotdogs, no pizza, no chicken nuggets.

Okay, we kinda sorta broke the rule with the first one, but we arrived hungry, and the little tiny donuts had just come out of the fryer.



But we got back on track once we saw the barbecued-pork-chop-sandwich place.



It wasn't the greatest sandwich ever--the chop was tasty but a little dry, and the whole thing only really worked because of the sauerkraut--but it was enough to hold us until we tracked down the ultimate country-fair food.

Finnish pancake with blueberry sauce. Rich and creamy, a denser version of flan. Exquisite.



I guess this is something I could, in theory, make at home--I picked up the recipe on our previous visit--but I stop short at the part that says Ingredients: 8 large eggs, 1 qt whole milk, 1/4 lb butter ...

Luckily, just around the corner from the pancakes (which were served under a sign that read "If it's not eggs, it's not breakfast"), we found fresh local raspberries in both red and golden varieties. A healthy-snack oasis in a fried-dough desert.



And so we were satisfied. For a while. Until we encountered a stall selling all manner of Puerto Rican snacks: arepas, chicharrón, alcapurria. Naturally, we were obliged to pick up at least one relleno de papa, a tennis-ball-sized sphere of deep-fried mashed potato stuffed with ground beef. And we both decided it was one of the best we'd had: a generously meaty filling, fluffy potato, and a slight crunch to the surrounding batter. (It is testament to its yumminess that it was gone before I thought to take a picture.)

Just as we finished inhaling that treat, The Boy spotted the cheese curd stall.

How could we not?



The batter was incredibly light, with a delicate crunch; the curds had a pleasant tanginess and were chewy but not rubbery. They'd make mozzarella sticks stare at their feet and mumble an apology.

By now it was getting late, so it seemed like a good time to find dessert. But what to try? The deep-fried Oreos or the apple fritters?

Winner: fritters. Check out the snowcap of powdered cinnamon sugar.



I know, I know; doesn't this seem like a disgusting amount of food? But in our defense, we didn't eat the entirety of every dish (some were just too humongously proportioned to manage). Plus there were all kinds of things we didn't eat. Like Freudian foot-long corn dogs.



And smoked turkey drumsticks.



And ... um ... this ...

Cupcakes? Yum bunnies!

I promise this isn't going to turn into a cupcake blog. Heaven knows there are already enough perfectly well-qualified applicants in that field. But following last week's rather disappointing encounter with the cupcakes at Kickass, I had an epiphany.

It happened at work, and was due in large part to the members of a committee whose role is to make the staff feel valued. Yet another reason I'm glad to be there.

How did they demonstrate their appreciation this week?

One word, five dozen times over: cupcakes.



The selection included chocolate with caramel buttercream, and spice cake with lemon curd filling. Carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Chocolate with peanut butter buttercream. Mocha cake with espresso buttercream.

I chose red velvet with cream cheese icing, mostly because red velvet cake is one of those southern creations that don't make it to these parts too often. And then I went for the chocolate cake with raspberry preserve filling.

And boy, were they good: generous handfuls of sponge, light and fluffy but just dense enough to be satisfyingly chewy. The frosting was thick and sweet and creamy, and proportionally balanced so that each mouthful of cake came with just the right amount of topping.

Here's another angle, just for the heck of it:



Mmmmmm ... mmmmmm ...

Turns out these faith-restoring cupcakes came from Yum Bunnies Cakery in Belmont. I assume most of their business is word-of-mouth, because their site is impossible to find. I searched on various combinations of "bakery belmont specialty cakes cupcakes": nothing. Only when I typed in "yum bunnies" did I get results--and then to directory sites and an in-need-of-help mySpace profile, rather than to the company's site.

In other words, unless you already know the place exists, you're never gonna find it.

Could all be fixed with a few carefully placed keywords and some sensible linking ... which could be arranged in exchange for, oh, I dunno ... maybe a selection of tasty cakeries of the really kickass kind?

(Update: half an hour after going live, this post was ranking 6th on Google's first SERP for yum bunnies and 5th on the second SERP for bakery belmont specialty cakes cupcakes. Hint, hint ...)

They'd kick more ass if they were bigger

A new bakery has opened in Somerville, and you can tell the business is just chock-full of attitude.

How?

1) It's called Kickass Cupcakes (which just proves it's not your grandmama's bakery, mister!)

2) The have craaaazy flavors like the vegan Java Jolt, the Blue Velvet (kinky!) and the Movie Matinee Special (topped with gummy candy! That's just crazy!).

3) They charge $2.75 per cake.

Well, sure, you say. Seems reasonable. After all, Starbucks asks two bucks for a blueberry muffin.

Yes, but one Starbucks pastry is as big as your fist and will keep you going until lunch. The cupcakes that claim kickassishness, on the other hand, are, well, dainty.



Now you can say it: three bucks for that?

In fairness, our chosen Mojito flavor was pretty tasty. The cake was light, buttery, airy. The buttercream frosting, though a little too sweet, had a fresh lime tang, garnished with ribbons of fresh mint.

But sticker-shock meant we just got one to share, and it was about as satisfying as a couple of cookies. Enough cake for a fulfilling snack would have set us back a tenner (and lasted about five minutes); the same amount could buy a decent bottle of Pinot Gris or a half-pound of Manchego and some boquerones. I know which I'd prefer.

Am I being overly touchy about this? Possibly. But if so, it's in part because I know how cheap and easy it is to whip up a batch of cupcakes. I grew up with the Be-Ro cookbook, standard issue in economical northern English households since the 1920s and a great resource for recipes for good ol' British cakes and pastries (Bakewell tart, Cornish pasties, Maids of Honour and, yes, Spotted Dick).

And I know that, given 20 minutes, my mom can create a dozen double-chocolate cakes that are just as fluffy as those claiming kickassocity. (And, given 20 minutes more, my dad can dispose of them.)

Okay, not everyone has my mom's veteran baking skills. But are these purportedly rear-beating cakes really so much better than the mass-produced supermarket versions?

Or is their value not in the taste, but rather in the attitude they convey: an overlap of nostalgia, liberty and irony?

The neo-cupcake concept is aimed at the twentysomething crowd--fresh out of college, with disposable income, a longing for hipness and a vague yearning for the security of childhood. They love the fact that (finally!) mom and dad can't stop them doing whatever they want: staying out late, ignoring their homework, overdosing on overpriced cupcakes. Rock 'n' roll!

I know, I know. You come here for vicarious living and food pr0n, and instead you get half-baked pop psychology.

Okay. We're eating at Rialto tonight (first time since the makeover). Perhaps normal service will resume tomorrow.

Vosges bacon chocolate: the verdict. Finally.

Yes, after months (months!) of searching, I found it. The WholeFoodses in Cambridge and Austin may have come up short, but in New York you can find anything, including Vosges new flavor, Mo's Bacon Bar.

(If you don't know why this find was so thrilling, this post about chocolate from June should help.)

I had considered doing the taste test as a videocast, but as soon as I realized I was spending way too much time deciding what to wear (for my big break!), I figured it would be best just to write the play by play.

I took the chocolate out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. And then we began.

Vosges' bars are hermetically sealed, so there's no way to get a sense of the aroma until you split open the foil wrapper.

Here we go.

Inhale. Smoky; a subtle saltiness.

I'd been hoping for cartoon-like rashers poking out through the chocolate. I guess that would have been asking for too much.

First bite.

Oh.

Wow.

Oh wow yes.

It starts out creamy, buttery, velvet smooth, with a definite smokiness. And then a unmistakable baconiness--hints of fat, nut, spice (juniper?) and a slight crunch (that's the smoked salt).

The finish is salty, but not overwhelimg. Kind of like the peanut butter-chocolate combo, but better. Salt and bacon crunch between the teeth.

When you let it melt in your mouth, you're left with tiny nuggets of bacon, which then dissolve like a whisper. Careful sucking and tonguework removes the chocolate to reveal, on close inspection, perfect little lardons.

Milk chocolate (41% cacao) was a good choice for this; dark would have overwhelmed the bacon's smokiness, I think. It's not overly sweet and provides a balanced counterpoint to the more savory tastes.

The Boy reckons this is the best of Vosges' flavors; the others are great, but this is the most carefully considered and well executed yet. And he also says I should make sure to mention that it frickin' ROCKS.

A few more NYC highlights

Yeah, I know, I'm being lame. But between starting my new job and watching the entire second series of Doctor Who on DVD (geekout!!), my days have been busier recently than they have for the past couple of months.

I intend to pick up the pace a little, but meanwhile, here are some of the highlights of our NYC trip (apart from those involving fantastically hirsute Mexicans, obviously).

The Richard Serra exhibit at MOMA
Twelve-foot-high metal walls; not what one would consider emotionally compelling. But these long ribbons of steel, curved into corridors and rooms, the walls tilting inward and outward, are so unexpected and, well, just frickin' ridiculous in scale that they made me almost giddy. And I'm sure Serra was thinking, "Let's make the walls go this way! Wooo! That'll mess with their heads!"

The surfaces of the indoor sculptures were striated with subtle shifts in color--rusts and reds and browns and golds, smooth to the touch (though the security guards discourage tactile interaction. And indoor photography. Ha).



The sculptures in the garden were fabulously scarred and full of character.



Check out MOMA's site about the exhibit (cleverly designed so it's not immediately clear how you access the content--it's called usability, people!), especially the videos. Serra is cool.

Central Park Zoo
Despite numerous strolls through the park and my zoo fixation, somehow we'd never amalgamated the two until this trip. It being a gorgeous Sunday morning, the place was a sea of ankle-biters demanding forbidden treats ("but I want to play with the monkeys!") and, perched on parental shoulders, shrieking at unearthly levels into the ears of unwitting bystanders.

Also way too many frazzled moms trying to navigate SUV-sized strollers up and down the zoo's narrow staircases, which leads one to wonder whether the place wasn't intended for children who could ambulate independently. And also hold conversations and maybe fix drinks. Just simple ones, mind you; highballs, screwdrivers, that sort of thing. We're not talking Ramos Gin Fizzes here. A couple of ingredients and some ice, is all.

Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah. Ice. Polar bears.

I have trouble watching shows about global warming because they invariably include a shot of a lone polar bear adrift on a dwindling chunk of ice, along with mournful music and the narrator explaining sadly how they're kinda screwed. So getting to see one up close--swimming around his deep pool, powerful and graceful--was quite moving.



Oh, also: best paws ever. (For scale, note the kid's hand bottom left.)



We also saw bats, sea lions, boas, colobus monkeys, penguins and red pandas.

And then, because it was lunchtime, we went to see a French bistro that served a lovely salade niçoise.



Though inauthentic, the chunks of French bread slathered in olive tapenade were a genius touch.

Our friend Amy had offered us the use of her membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was another place I'd never been. "And," she'd said, "you have to go check out the rooftop garden. It's one of my favorite views of the city."

It started out pleasantly enough: a stroll past the Temple of Dendur, a wander through the American Decorative Arts, a quick gape at the 165-foot-long painting of the garden at Versailles. And then, after consulting the map, we thought we'd cross to the other side of the building to check out the Modern Art collection (because we hadn't had our fill at MOMA).

This would have been relatively simple, were it not for the fact that half the rooms in the middle of the building were apparently closed for construction/refurbishment/hygrometer resynchronization, so every route we chose ended with a locked door and a surly guard.

Eventually we decided to go directly to roof, where we found Frank Stella sculptures, champagne and--as Amy had promised--a fabulous vista. I especially like the way the hedging around the roof seems to blend seamlessly with the trees of the park below.



A pleasant end to a fun trip. If you want to see more, check out photos from this trip on Flickr.

Sunday lunch

Roast shoulder of lamb studded with garlic and garden rosemary, backed up by roasted fingerling potatoes, brussels sprouts and green beans.

On percussion: minted peas.

Chorus provided by The Gravy of the Gods (lamb juices, cipollini onions, roasted garlic and pinot noir).

NYC: Cats, fish, wolfmen

What better way to follow up a week of pastoral relaxtion in England--and, for that matter, a summer of gentle laziness--than a full-on three-day yomp around New York City?

That was our weekend, thanks largely to my friend Amy, who generously offered us the use of her lovely home on Roosevelt Island. The welcome committee comprised of her three cats.

Poptart is the sweetly affectionate one--the kind that catfood marketers suggest your feline will become if only you open the correct can:



Oreo is the extremely friendly one: "Hey, what're you doing? You're in the shower? Cool! I'll come in too! No? Okay, I'll just sit on the sink and watch. Hey, now you're eating! Can I thrust my head into your cereal?"



And then there's Ruby, who kept out of the way for most of our visit, so appears in no photos.

Highlights of the trip:

Esca (aka The Place that Does All the Fish)
We'd wanted to try this place since we read a 2005 profile of owner Dave Pasternack in the New Yorker. Finally, this time, the stars lined up and we got a table.

The food? Oh, my.

Largely southern Italian, almost completely fish-based (not seafood, but actual swimmy-finny things), and fresh, fresh, fresh. The house specialty is the crudo, a selection of raw appetizers. We went for the king salmon, which was lovely, and the heretofore unheard-of opah.

Which. Was. Mindblowing.

Imagine a white dinner plate, the slightly indented center of which is covered with a layer of fish the color of pink grapefruit, sliced thinly enough to be almost transparent, flecked with black pepper and finely chopped chives. Imagine being able to cut a piece of this raw fish with a gentle pressure of the side of your fork. Imagine it in your mouth: rich, creamy, a texture of avocado. Yes, avocado. One of the most incredible things I've ever eaten.

All the dishes were fresh, simple, carefully constructed--especially the grilled sardines with pine nuts and sultanas, and the Amalfi-style fish soup (a rich tomato base with big chunks of monkfish and sea bass)--and the service was attentive but low-key.

The only strange thing was the music which, instead of the expected compilation of opera standards or classical faves, was a mix of everything from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to Guns & Roses' "Sweet Child" to Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing." It was as though somone had forgotten to turn off the '80s station at the end of the cleaning shift ...

Coney Island!
It's been a lifelong dream of mine to visit Coney. So we did. A good 90-minute subway ride out on the F train, but the rewards are great if you're into fried food and freaks.

We got both.

First, a stop at Nathan's, the redoubtable hotdog place. I'm no dog conoisseur, but these were markedly better than I'm used to: a slightly tighter skin, smoky meat and a bright tang of sauerkraut in relief. They should be good--they certainly cook up enough of 'em.



Then a wander along the boardwalk, a peek inside the Brooklyn Cyclones ballpark and a stroll out onto the pier, where Asian and Hispanic families held elaborate picnics and occasionally checked on the fishing lines bobbing in the ocean below.

And then into Astroland Park, the latest in a series of amusement parks on the boardwalk, and home to the 80-year-old Cyclone roller coaster. And the Wonder Wheel.



(Just so you get the whole picture: only the white cars at the top of the wheel are stationary. The others--some shown here toward the center of the wheel, some on the outside, some halfway between--are sliding. Depending on where the wheel is in its rotation, they'll roll along the iron rails at perilous speeds.)

The Boy's, um, disdain for unsafe heights being legendary, I did not expect him to agree to a couple of rotations. But, much to his dismay, he did. He was a brave soldier, and afterward decided he did not need to experience anything taller than a Pimm's Cup for a while.

But even this worrisome experience was quckly forgotten when we found the freaks. Carnival shows have long been a part of Coney Island history, and the Coney Island Circus Sideshow keeps the dream alive. For six bucks (transacted by a cute, marginally tattooed girl), and with beer in hand (served by a cuter, more tattooed girl) you get a show that's not quite a ten-in-one, but close enough.

Show rules prevented photography, so you'll have to believe me when I say we saw:

A man drive a nail into his skull, followed up with a Black & Decker drill chaser
A woman whose body was filled with electricity
A woman (actually the same as the above) perform a slow dance with a 15-foot albino boa
A woman with a tattooed face eat fire

And ... and ... Chuy the Wolfman!



(After the show, I was waiting for The Boy to come out of the bathroom and Chuy was striking the set. He smiled at me. My life is complete.)