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> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better When I went to Chez Panisse for the first time—not Michelin starred, but still well-regard

> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better When I went to Chez Panisse for the first time—not Michelin starred, but still well-regarded—I didn't know what to expect. What surprised me was that it was just "what I normally eat" but better. Not fancy, not exotic, not flashy; at a surface level, it was less interesting than food I've had at "normal" restaurants... but it was somehow just better. It surprised me because I hadn't realize just how much room there was to improve on the details and execution of, well, "normal" cooking. I've occasionally seen something similar with codebases. Most code does what it needs to do, more or less, and hopefully it's not awful, but there are all kinds of sharp edges, inconsistencies, extra sources of friction—when I need to make a change, it's doable, but even the happy path has a bit of extra friction here and there, things that are clearly missing or in the wrong place or a bit hacky. And then, once in a while, I run into code that doesn't have those problems. Everything just somehow comes together; when I need to do something, there's an obvious way of doing it; when there's something odd in the design, it ends up addressing something I hadn't thought about. Somebody wrote the code with experience, attention to detail and the will to do quality work for its own sake. I don't know if it's the same with cooking, but with this kind of code, it generally took less time and effort for the people writing it than I'd expect from teams working on messier codebases. Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot. Right. I am away from home at the moment, staying at a house which doesn't have all the things I need. Like, there are only tiny frying pans, there aren't any spices/condiments/salt etc. So I have been buying the minimal things I need to cook food I like, and working with what is there. I took a tin of cheap, mass-produced fish out of the cupboard that I did not buy and was probably a mistaken purchase (everything in that cupboard needs to be used up), and on the basis that wasting food is a crime, I cooked it and added the simplest things alongside; some broccoli and a baguette. The meal I ate is one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it has improved my relationship with food, overnight. On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool. So I am glad to hear that your Chez Panisse experience was what it was.
- gowld 5y ago
  > On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool. Why? Does novelty have no value for you? The Michelin Star restaurant isn't just "different", it's a difference that is hard to find. Michelin Star ratings: 1 Star: Worth a stop when you are driving. 2 Star: Worth a detour when you are driving. 3 Star: Worth a dedicated trip. Price is, as with everything, supply vs demand.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > Why? > Does novelty have no value for you? Absurd. What kind of "novelty" is there for _you_ in eating food at an expensive restaurant that is not qualitatively better than that which you can buy more cheaply? That isn't novelty, it's foolishness. I don't need Michelin star ratings explained to me, I know all about them. I also know that people make dumb decisions when their aspirations, jealousies and FOMO are tickled.
    - cercatrova 5y ago
      Better is hard to define, as the root parent of this thread says, as you cannot directly compare, say, BBQ, to a molecular gastronomy meal; they are simply in different classes, "better" cannot be compared. That being said, if you like the food, then eat it, and if not, don't, regardless of whether it's Michelin or not.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Better is subjective and of course a person can compare two different types of restaurants. You do it every time you go out to determine where you want to go. You compare the two based on value, taste, frequency, and atmosphere. All subjective of course, but it's a personal preference you can compare. If the food was awful, the atmosphere or "novelty" was uncomfortable/unenjoyable/mediocre, the price was high in option A, you will feel cheated and would have rather had gone to option B. That experience will influence future decisions when comparing and deciding on a place.
dathinab 5y ago
There is a saying that the best way to judge the level of a restaurant is by checking how well the "common"/"normal" meals are done.
jrochkind1 5y ago
Yeah, I think it really depends on the place. One of my favorite meals at a fairly expensive (but definitely not Michelin-level) restaurant was a roast chicken. I got it reluctantly, why should I spend this much on roast chicken? But there wasn't anything else on the limited menu I wanted, of choice of like three mains. It was the best roast chicken I've ever had, like notably. I still have no idea how you make roast chicken taste that good. I still remember it, honestly in part because of the surprise. There are also other places where I've had delicious things I've never seen anywhere else, sure.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Most of creating a roast chicken that good is in sourcing the chicken. Breeds optimized for flavor rather than economics, fed a chicken’s natural diet, grown at the chicken’s natural pace, and handled carefully, slaughtered shortly before cooking. There is technique like injecting the brine and managing the smoke flavors but that’s like 10% of the work of raising the chicken.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
    I've raised multiple egg-laying flocks before but held off from meat birds because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of plucking. Thinking it might be worth raising a few on pasture just to check the difference in taste. Maybe this'll be the year!
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  I had a similar experience in, of all places, on the road (there's only one!) to Denali, in Alaska years ago. My wife started feeling ill and there was nothing nearby but we remembered passing a motel about 30 miles back and Denali was at least another 90 minutes away. We went in to get a room for the night and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the place would probably be condemned if it were anywhere else. The price of the room was insane, but it was the only hotel in at least 50 miles so it was either that or sleep in the car. The only thing I remember specifically from dinner was a smoked chicken and root beer. I love root beer and the menu claimed it was made by a local about 10 miles away. The quality of the food was incredible. Yeah, I've never paid $30 for half a chicken before or since, but it was the best chicken I've ever had. So was the root beer and whatever else we had for dinner. Everything they put on that table was absolutely delicious. And this at a tiny roadside motel where we were apparently the only guests. Wish I could remember the name of that place.
hardwaregeek 5y ago
That's a good example of a slightly different style of fine dining. A restaurant like Chez Panisse is in the vein of classic dishes, great execution. Similar restaurants are Via Carota and Osteria Mozza. You're not gonna get high concept molecular gastronomy at these restaurants. Another similar category are top notch sushi restaurants. An omakase at a very nice sushi restaurant is not going to have that different of a setup from an omakase at another restaurant. What elevates the sushi is the technique, the quality of the fish, and the quality of the rice. Surprisingly, the rice is one of the more noticeable aspects. In a good sushi restaurant the rice should fall apart in your mouth with the perfect lukewarm temperature.
asdff 5y ago
Part of it too is that restaurants at a certain price point have to be pragmatic with the dishes they are putting out. That means recipes are economized so ingredients are shared, and cheaper alternatives available from restaurant wholesalers are preferred. There's also the time; if you can make a 3 hour dish take 10 minutes to make you will take those compromises. This actually comes into play with tacos a lot. In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead much less at the pricepoint offered by these vendors (usually like $1.50 a taco) thanks to stuff like rent and more stringent health protocols that would condemn any home kitchen you've eaten out of in your life, so food like that doesn't even really exist in the marketplace otherwise.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  > In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead Huh? Are you under the impression that restaurants don't spend hours prepping their food? It takes a good pizzeria three days to make their dough. You couldn't do that at a roadside stand. I can't think of a single dish that you can make at a roadside stand but not in a restaurant with significantly better facilities. You're making a correlation vs causation error here -- yes, there are some types of food that you will more typically encounter in food-truck-type situations (e.g. in NYC that'd be something like lamb over rice with white and red sauce), but that's not because restaurants can't do it. There's just market segmentation.
  - rkangel 5y ago
    I think of road side food vans as equivalent to Indie games. There's a low buy in cost which means that there's much more opportunity for the creativity of the individual can flourish.
throwawayboise 5y ago
One thing restaurants will do that most people at home don't do is use a lot more salt and fat. Salt tastes good, fat tastes good. I don't know Chez Panisse but for example if you want to improve the taste of pasta you cook at home add a tablespoon or two of salt to the water when you cook it.
- balfirevic 5y ago
  Who cooks pasta without adding salt?
  - munchbunny 5y ago
    I'll do it if I know the sauce is already fairly salty due to its ingredients (cured pork, for example), in order to leave some room for adjustment later. Under-salted food is much easier to fix than over-salted.
    - cipheredStones 5y ago
      One of the key observations in the excellent cookbook/cooking-theory-book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is that to a certain point, salt doesn't make things taste salty - it just makes them taste more flavorful, more "like themselves". I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish.
      - munchbunny 5y ago
        > I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish. In the same chapter, the author also observes that you need to consider the total amount of salt coming from other ingredients, such as the cheese, stocks, or cured meats. Depending on the ingredients, especially cured meats, you might already be working with a lot of salt before you add any of your own. In my case, there are two considerations at play. (1) I use the pasta water for thickening the sauce, so any salt I put in the pasta water is also going into the sauce at that concentration. (2) I finish the pasta in the already-seasoned sauce before serving, so the pasta isn't going onto the plate unsalted. End result is that I salt the pasta water when I know I have ample head room to work with, which is most times, but not always.
asah 5y ago
Lol, chez panisse only seems "normal" because everybody copied them. You're eating OG and if it's somehow-better it's because they've perfected the unique farm-to-table supply chain.
calf 5y ago
Chez Panisse is my favorite famous restaurant for exactly that reason. They're not trying to make things luxurious or amazing or impressive or complicated. It's good quality ingredients cooked simply, the way you would want to eat it every day. Chez Panisse is the anti-Michelin restaurant done right.
- tkgally 5y ago
  I ate at Chez Panisse once six or seven years ago, and, to tell you the truth, I can’t remember what the food was like. It was probably great, but I was there with a group of relatives. We spent the whole time talking, and I neglected to pay attention to the food. Probably one reason the author of the linked article was able to describe her enjoyment of her meal so well is that she was eating alone.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

> Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot. Right. I am away from home at the moment, staying at a house which doesn't have all the things I need. Like, there are only tiny frying pans, there aren't any spices/condiments/salt etc. So I have been buying the minimal things I need to cook food I like, and working with what is there. I took a tin of cheap, mass-produced fish out of the cupboard that I did not buy and was probably a mistaken purchase (everything in that cupboard needs to be used up), and on the basis that wasting food is a crime, I cooked it and added the simplest things alongside; some broccoli and a baguette. The meal I ate is one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it has improved my relationship with food, overnight. On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool. So I am glad to hear that your Chez Panisse experience was what it was.

gowld 5y ago
> On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool. Why? Does novelty have no value for you? The Michelin Star restaurant isn't just "different", it's a difference that is hard to find. Michelin Star ratings: 1 Star: Worth a stop when you are driving. 2 Star: Worth a detour when you are driving. 3 Star: Worth a dedicated trip. Price is, as with everything, supply vs demand.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > Why? > Does novelty have no value for you? Absurd. What kind of "novelty" is there for _you_ in eating food at an expensive restaurant that is not qualitatively better than that which you can buy more cheaply? That isn't novelty, it's foolishness. I don't need Michelin star ratings explained to me, I know all about them. I also know that people make dumb decisions when their aspirations, jealousies and FOMO are tickled.
  - cercatrova 5y ago
    Better is hard to define, as the root parent of this thread says, as you cannot directly compare, say, BBQ, to a molecular gastronomy meal; they are simply in different classes, "better" cannot be compared. That being said, if you like the food, then eat it, and if not, don't, regardless of whether it's Michelin or not.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Better is subjective and of course a person can compare two different types of restaurants. You do it every time you go out to determine where you want to go. You compare the two based on value, taste, frequency, and atmosphere. All subjective of course, but it's a personal preference you can compare. If the food was awful, the atmosphere or "novelty" was uncomfortable/unenjoyable/mediocre, the price was high in option A, you will feel cheated and would have rather had gone to option B. That experience will influence future decisions when comparing and deciding on a place.

dathinab 5y ago

There is a saying that the best way to judge the level of a restaurant is by checking how well the "common"/"normal" meals are done.

jrochkind1 5y ago

Yeah, I think it really depends on the place. One of my favorite meals at a fairly expensive (but definitely not Michelin-level) restaurant was a roast chicken. I got it reluctantly, why should I spend this much on roast chicken? But there wasn't anything else on the limited menu I wanted, of choice of like three mains. It was the best roast chicken I've ever had, like notably. I still have no idea how you make roast chicken taste that good. I still remember it, honestly in part because of the surprise. There are also other places where I've had delicious things I've never seen anywhere else, sure.

spoonjim 5y ago
Most of creating a roast chicken that good is in sourcing the chicken. Breeds optimized for flavor rather than economics, fed a chicken’s natural diet, grown at the chicken’s natural pace, and handled carefully, slaughtered shortly before cooking. There is technique like injecting the brine and managing the smoke flavors but that’s like 10% of the work of raising the chicken.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  I've raised multiple egg-laying flocks before but held off from meat birds because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of plucking. Thinking it might be worth raising a few on pasture just to check the difference in taste. Maybe this'll be the year!
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
I had a similar experience in, of all places, on the road (there's only one!) to Denali, in Alaska years ago. My wife started feeling ill and there was nothing nearby but we remembered passing a motel about 30 miles back and Denali was at least another 90 minutes away. We went in to get a room for the night and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the place would probably be condemned if it were anywhere else. The price of the room was insane, but it was the only hotel in at least 50 miles so it was either that or sleep in the car. The only thing I remember specifically from dinner was a smoked chicken and root beer. I love root beer and the menu claimed it was made by a local about 10 miles away. The quality of the food was incredible. Yeah, I've never paid $30 for half a chicken before or since, but it was the best chicken I've ever had. So was the root beer and whatever else we had for dinner. Everything they put on that table was absolutely delicious. And this at a tiny roadside motel where we were apparently the only guests. Wish I could remember the name of that place.

hardwaregeek 5y ago

That's a good example of a slightly different style of fine dining. A restaurant like Chez Panisse is in the vein of classic dishes, great execution. Similar restaurants are Via Carota and Osteria Mozza. You're not gonna get high concept molecular gastronomy at these restaurants. Another similar category are top notch sushi restaurants. An omakase at a very nice sushi restaurant is not going to have that different of a setup from an omakase at another restaurant. What elevates the sushi is the technique, the quality of the fish, and the quality of the rice. Surprisingly, the rice is one of the more noticeable aspects. In a good sushi restaurant the rice should fall apart in your mouth with the perfect lukewarm temperature.

asdff 5y ago

Part of it too is that restaurants at a certain price point have to be pragmatic with the dishes they are putting out. That means recipes are economized so ingredients are shared, and cheaper alternatives available from restaurant wholesalers are preferred. There's also the time; if you can make a 3 hour dish take 10 minutes to make you will take those compromises. This actually comes into play with tacos a lot. In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead much less at the pricepoint offered by these vendors (usually like $1.50 a taco) thanks to stuff like rent and more stringent health protocols that would condemn any home kitchen you've eaten out of in your life, so food like that doesn't even really exist in the marketplace otherwise.

CydeWeys 5y ago
> In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead Huh? Are you under the impression that restaurants don't spend hours prepping their food? It takes a good pizzeria three days to make their dough. You couldn't do that at a roadside stand. I can't think of a single dish that you can make at a roadside stand but not in a restaurant with significantly better facilities. You're making a correlation vs causation error here -- yes, there are some types of food that you will more typically encounter in food-truck-type situations (e.g. in NYC that'd be something like lamb over rice with white and red sauce), but that's not because restaurants can't do it. There's just market segmentation.
- rkangel 5y ago
  I think of road side food vans as equivalent to Indie games. There's a low buy in cost which means that there's much more opportunity for the creativity of the individual can flourish.

throwawayboise 5y ago

One thing restaurants will do that most people at home don't do is use a lot more salt and fat. Salt tastes good, fat tastes good. I don't know Chez Panisse but for example if you want to improve the taste of pasta you cook at home add a tablespoon or two of salt to the water when you cook it.

balfirevic 5y ago
Who cooks pasta without adding salt?
- munchbunny 5y ago
  I'll do it if I know the sauce is already fairly salty due to its ingredients (cured pork, for example), in order to leave some room for adjustment later. Under-salted food is much easier to fix than over-salted.
  - cipheredStones 5y ago
    One of the key observations in the excellent cookbook/cooking-theory-book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is that to a certain point, salt doesn't make things taste salty - it just makes them taste more flavorful, more "like themselves". I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish.
    - munchbunny 5y ago
      > I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish. In the same chapter, the author also observes that you need to consider the total amount of salt coming from other ingredients, such as the cheese, stocks, or cured meats. Depending on the ingredients, especially cured meats, you might already be working with a lot of salt before you add any of your own. In my case, there are two considerations at play. (1) I use the pasta water for thickening the sauce, so any salt I put in the pasta water is also going into the sauce at that concentration. (2) I finish the pasta in the already-seasoned sauce before serving, so the pasta isn't going onto the plate unsalted. End result is that I salt the pasta water when I know I have ample head room to work with, which is most times, but not always.

asah 5y ago

Lol, chez panisse only seems "normal" because everybody copied them. You're eating OG and if it's somehow-better it's because they've perfected the unique farm-to-table supply chain.

calf 5y ago

Chez Panisse is my favorite famous restaurant for exactly that reason. They're not trying to make things luxurious or amazing or impressive or complicated. It's good quality ingredients cooked simply, the way you would want to eat it every day. Chez Panisse is the anti-Michelin restaurant done right.

tkgally 5y ago
I ate at Chez Panisse once six or seven years ago, and, to tell you the truth, I can’t remember what the food was like. It was probably great, but I was there with a group of relatives. We spent the whole time talking, and I neglected to pay attention to the food. Probably one reason the author of the linked article was able to describe her enjoyment of her meal so well is that she was eating alone.