Raskin takes temps, Gaz starts up, Kenji accuses, Uber Eats at 70 (percent), and more...
Family Meal - Friday, October 26, 2018
Hello Friday,
Relatively light Family Meal today. Let’s get to it…
The Critics – The next decibel? Charleston Post and Courier critic Hanna Raskin is incorporating a new data point into her reviews: “Going forward, the box accompanying my starred reviews will include not just the restaurant’s address, menu prices and main eating area’s decibel level, but the temperature in the dining room.” ATTN: Charleston, “Consumer research suggests 70 to 73 degrees is a safer range if the aim is to make the most people comfortable,” and Raskin was recently happiest artificial-weather-wise at Jianna, where her thermometer registered 71.8.
Those delivery $$$ - “Uber Eats will expand to cover 70 percent of the U.S. population by the end of the year... Much of the expansion comes in smaller cities and suburbs, according to Janelle Sallenave, head of Uber Eats, U.S. & Canada. ‘This means we’re able to get into cities like Eugene, Oregon or Cedar Rapids, Iowa — cities that you don’t historically think about for the [Uber] rideshare business,’ Sallenave said... Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Uber’s Eats business could be valued at as much as $20 billion, or one-sixth of the entire company’s revenue.” Details via Kristen Hawley at Skift Table.
Lists I like – The New Orleans Times-Picayune published a short “Chefs to Watch: 2019” this week. On the list (links to individual Q&A’s): “Jeffery Heard (Heard Dat Kitchen); Serigne Mbaye (Pop-ups); Justin Rodriguez and Danny Alas (Paloma Café); and John Sinclair (Longway Tavern).
The Chain – Per Eater LA: “David Chang will debut his lauded Momofuku Noodle Bar in West Hollywood along La Cienega Boulevard some time in 2019.”
Baywatch – “The days are getting shorter, pumpkin spice lattes are here and once again, it’s time for that other Bay Area rite of fall: worrying about the levels of toxins in local Dungeness crabs.” This week, it’s still mostly good news according to Tara Duggan in the SF Chronicle, “So far, elevated levels of domoic acid were found in five Dungeness crabs collected from Bodega Bay and Trinidad (Humboldt County) in late September and early October, which is the most recent data available. The San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, Monterey and Morro Bay regions were clean in this round of tests.”
The (Recipe) Media – On Tuesday, NYT Food editor Sam Sifton announced that Scott Loitsch, formerly “a big cheese” at Buzzfeed’s Tasty brand, would be the new executive video producer for NYT Cooking. The announcement on Instagram came with around 600 likes and a bunch of congratulatory notes. The announcement on Twitter was met with a mediocre ratio and a barrage of angry comments. Complaints summed up by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt: “You hired a person who was a leader at a company that made a policy of stealing content from other people and repackaging it. I am seriously shocked and disappointed by this move.” At least Loitsch is bringing his talent to a credit-where-due shop now?
Ends of eras in NYC – Sifton tweet re Dojo near NYU: “Today in my-city-is-gone, the closure of a signature Gen-X first date emporium. As @mehpatrol put it, ‘Pour out some carrot-ginger dressing.’” And per Serena Dai in Eater NY: “The big former space of iconic Union Square diner the Coffee Shop will soon be split into four new retail spaces — three of which will be reserved for new restaurants, according to the property manager. No leases have been signed yet.”
For the bar – It’s a bold move to launch a new marketing / consulting / networking service via all comic sans press release, but here’s Gaz Regan’s new venture, the WWBDb (their acronym, not a The League joke, I swear) or Worldwide Bartender Database. You’re welcome?
For design fans – Do restaurateurs in more stacked cities ever look at pictures of soaring ceilings in Los Angeles and elsewhere and tear up a little bit? I’m not saying everyone’s a fan of big bow trusses (or two) and all wood hangar arches, but …nice space if you can get it. Here’s the photospread for Atrium in LA.
For the somm – Some important myth-busting from Esther Mobley in the SF Chronicle: “You’ve heard of the 1976 Judgment of Paris, the competition that proved to the stuffy French establishment that California, too, was capable of great wine…. And so you know the figures associated with the Judgment of Paris, figures celebrated for creating the modern California wine industry as we know it: Steven Spurrier, the wine merchant who organized the competition. Warren Winiarski, Mike Grgich and Jim Barrett, the vintners who made the winning wines. George Taber, the journalist whose Time magazine article transformed the tasting into a news event. Yet behind this celebrated roster of men is a set of hidden figures:… Indeed, without Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher and Joanne Dickenson DePuy, there would never have been a Judgment of Paris at all.” That link again, is here.
Tis the season – Not really restaurant related, but can’t get enough of the visuals in NYT Magazine’s candy issue. Get yourself a big screen, start with this Colombian candy factory, and click through the rest at bottom. Pieces by Tejal Rao, Samin Nosrat, Elise Craig, Mark Binelli, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and Mary H. K. Choi.
And last and least – In the New Yorker Food newsletter this week, Helen Rosner highlights a new subreddit called Fridge Detective, where over twelve thousand “sleuths have signed on to examine, in minute detail, the interiors of each other’s refrigerators. Like a party guest poking around in the host’s medicine cabinet, or a magazine throwing back the doors on a celebrity shoe closet, the icebox snoops hunt for clues in patterns of consumption…. A half-eaten yogurt, a packet of cheese, fifteen types of mustard, and a single bottle of beer? In these oddly intimate snapshots of place, class, and culture, everything—even nothing—says something.” She also uploaded a photo of her own, which is clearly a request that going forward all PR pitches incorporate reference to at least one item therein. Clearly.
And that’s it for today. If you don’t hear from me on Tuesday, please send a search party to the playground in our apartment complex.
I’ll (hopefully) see you here Tuesday for next Family Meal.
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P.S. If you can’t get enough of that NYT Mag Candy Issue, here’s a very short behind the scenes video on the cover shoot.