The top five U.S. restaurants I'd most like to try

Today.  The list changes often.  Right now, though, it's easy and remarkably consistent.  I exclude from it all the restaurants where I've already eaten, because at least I've gotten to taste their food once.

5.  Per Se

Though Thomas Keller's New York interpretation of his flagship French Laundry has been the subject of some controversy in the last few years, it still makes my list.  I've been a fan of Keller's food for years, and my one meal at The French Laundry was exceptional, so I'm itching to try Per Se.

4.  Masa

I've heard so much about the sushi and service at Masa that I've wanted to try it for years.  Having experienced The Araki in London, I now understand just how amazing sushi can be. 

3.  Le Bernardin

It's a testimony to the top two places on this list that one of my dream destinations, Eric Ripert's amazing seafood restaurant, is in third place.  I've tremendously enjoyed Ripert's menus at the Cayman Cookout and at Blue by Eric Ripert, and Le Bernardin is supposed to be even better.

2.  Vespertine

This new restaurant made Grant Achatz grin like a kid on his Instagram.  Everything I've read about it sounds like it's both a strange experience and a source of amazing food.  I'm ready to go.

1.  Eleven Madison Park

Currently the number one restaurant in the world in the influential best 50 rankings.  Three Michelin stars.  Chef Daniel Humm, whose food I've loved at past Cayman Cookout events.  If I had the time and could get a reservation, I'd fly to New York City just for this one meal.

I hope one day to get the chance to visit all of these fine places.

On the road again: Bouchercon, San Francisco, day 4

If you know me at all well, you know that I am not a morning person. I don't like being awake before the hour hits double digits, and I relish every chance I get to sleep late. It should come as some surprise, therefore, that I set a wake-up call for eight, and mere minutes later was heading into the Ferry Building Farmers Market. What could lead me to such an act?

Cheese.

More specifically, the Acapella goat cheese from Andante Dairy. We encountered this cheese Wednesday night at Coi, where it soloed as the meal's cheese course. I would normally have popped into my mouth in one bite the entire tiny wedge they served, but when they told us it was from Andante, I instead took a sliver of the piece. That was a good choice. Acapella is, hands-down and by far, the best goat cheese I have ever tasted. Period. When we learned that it might be on sale by Andante at the farmer's market, but that they brought relatively little to market and closed as soon as that was gone, I knew Saturday would be an early rising day for me.

Of course, once there, I had to learn what cheeses traveled well--Acapella does not, alas--and then had to buy them all so that I could treat those at home to them. (Cheese tasting at my house Friday night!)

As I write this, my tummy is happily digesting half a small circle of Acapella and some fine, fresh-baked bread from the stall next to Andante. Each taste was as good as the first.

Andante is something of a celebrity dairy, if there can be such a thing, and its cheesemaker, Soyoung Scanlon, a bit of a food celebrity herself. She offers her cheese to few restaurants, Coi and The French Laundry among them, but if you ever get a chance to taste one of them, take the opportunity. I'm very glad I did.

Today's Bouchercon highlight was the interview with Lee Child, the author of the insanely popular Jack Reacher series. Child makes everything he does look effortless, but after producing over a dozen consecutive bestsellers (his first book among them), he clearly possesses great skill. Each time I listen to him talk, I learn something new; if you get a chance to attend an event where he is speaking, check it out.

Great service is hard

I ate at many fine restaurants while in Austin and Boston. Though in most of them the food was very good but never great, many clearly aspired to greatness. They had focused on making inventive, interesting menus and on executing them as well as they could. Even when their ambition outstripped their ability, the focus was clear. To be a truly great restaurant, though, requires more than just superb food; a topnotch place must also provide great service.

In all of the restaurants I tried, the service was not up to the food.

Given their lofty goals, I couldn't help but wondering why that was the case. Restaurant service is something amenable to rules and practice. When and how to clear, when and how to serve, monitoring the guests to make sure they don't lack for water, and so on--all of these problems are small. So, why don't more places offer great service?

The answer is obvious: Great service is hard.

For one thing, it requires an obsessive focus on the customer, not on yourself. You may not want to pour water right then, but if a glass is approaching empty, you need to do it. You might want to serve the next course, but if a guest just left for the restroom, you must hold it--maybe even remake it so it arrives at the table as it should. To be a great server, you have to put the wishes of your customers ahead of your own over and over and over again. That alone is very hard.

It's even harder than it should be, however, because most restaurants don't spend enough on service. If you give a server too many tables to cover, he or she is doomed to fail. Similarly, if no one has trained you on serving on the left and taking from the right, then no one should expect you to have that data. And, of course, there's the money factor: Great servers should make livings commensurate with their skill. If that means raising the prices a bit, so be it.

Finally, great service demands a very difficult level of subjugation of your own concerns. When you deliver a perfectly cooked medium-rare steak to the man who explicitly ordered it that way, and he then declares in a loud voice that he wanted it cooked brown all the way through (an abomination, by the way), you have to take it back--even though neither you nor the kitchen did anything wrong. Dealing with difficult customers is part of the job. (I have to say that I try very, very hard never to be such a customer.)

It's no surprise, then, that great service is rare. When you find it, however, it is a joy to behold and to experience. Dine at The French Laundry or Joel Robuchon, to name but two pinnacles of service, and you will understand how good service can be. If, however, you're eating at a less lofty place and the service lags the food, try to be understanding; the odds are that the servers are understaffed, undertrained, underpaid, and doing the best they can.

And always, always, tip a full twenty percent (or more) unless you have a very specific reason for tipping less--and even then, be sure the problem you have is with the servers and not anyone else.

Food porn with me

As I mentioned a while ago, Chantrelle, the operator of the fun and informative site, foodporn.com, did an interview with me during our amazing meal at The French Laundry. The interview is online now, so if you're interested, check it out here. I don't think my answers are particularly interesting or special, but if you want to know what I consider to be the sexiest food or my favorite national cuisine, you can find out there. Plus, her photos of the food and in-depth run of the meal are definitely enjoyable.

As much as I enjoy food porn (which is basically text and especially pictures of great dishes), I have to say that I second Chantrelle's desire for smell-o-vision on the Web--with suitable controls, of course. Her picture of the box of white truffles is lovely, but getting to smell them was another, more powerful experience entirely.

On second thought, I must retract that desire for smell-o-vision. I don't believe the Web is or should be entirely controllable, and the thought of giving billions of men--or even just the hackers--the ability to email or post their smelliest farts is frightening indeed.

Not that I'd do it, of course. Unless I was provoked. Or really proud.

On insanely expensive meals

Regular readers will note that I write frequently about food, particularly about insanely expensive restaurant meals. Ticia asked recently how I got into the hobby of "collecting restaurants," as I often put it, and suggested that others might want to know. So, I'll do my best to explain.

I didn't grow up with fancy food; far from it. I was a very shy and conservative diner for quite some years. Over time, though, business travel took me to cities with restaurants far better than I had ever sampled before, so my palate grew both more discriminating and more adventurous.

A group of us began eating out most Saturday nights and trying different local places, and that helped me expand my dining horizons.

What really pushed me over the edge, though, was a meal at Minibar in Cafe Atlantico many years ago. Minibar, for those who don't know it, is a six-seat restaurant-within-a-restaurant that sits on the highest level of Jose Andres' Cafe Atlantico. Andres worked at Ferran Adria's El Bulli in Spain, and while there he learned a great deal about molecular gastronomy. The meal we enjoyed on that first trip (we've since gone a second time) involved many of Adria's now widely known techniques, including caviar made from the essence of peas, various deconstructed classic dishes, and so on.

The presentations were like nothing I'd ever seen--and they were all delicious and whimsical and fun. Like many types of literature, and like SF in particular, these dishes were more than food, they were the works of artists in conversation with their field's past and contemporary artists. I know that sounds pretentious, but it's true; a chef who deconstructs a classic dish, such as Caesar salad, into a new but tasty concoction that captures the essence of the classic in a new way is both commenting on and honoring that previous dish.

I finally got it: the meals were not just sustenance, and not just delicious, they were also art experiences, performance art of a very special type.

When you eat at The French Laundry or Alinea or Robuchon in Las Vegas, to name but three, you are not simply feeding yourself; you are experiencing the art of a chef and a style of dining that the chef has created and refined. You have the opportunity to learn and experience new things--even as you stuff your face.

A true foodie, I believe, is not just in it for dinner at these fancy places, of course. A true foodie should also love any food that tastes good or is inventive or is otherwise interesting. So, I'll happily enjoy a hot dog or macaroni and cheese, but I'll also crave these more adventurous offerings, even if they cost a small fortune, and I'll enjoy them both as meals and as the art experiences they truly are.

On the road again: World Fantasy Con, day 8

I'm on the plane from SFO to DFW and have done all the catch-up email work that I can. I'm really missing that in-flight bandwidth now, but so it goes. Today is all about travel--driving, walking, flying, walking, flying, walking, and driving again--so it's not particularly interesting. More to the point, I don't want it to be interesting; the more predictable and routine air travel is, the better.

The most important event since my last entry was dinner at The French Laundry, Thomas Keller's original restaurant and still, at least to me, the mothership of his many operations. This place is sufficiently legendary in foodie circles that it's almost impossible for a meal there to live up to the restaurant's reputation for perfection, inventiveness, and, above all else, wonderful food--yet, our dinner did. In the over four and a half hours we were there, the service was always impeccable and, when necessary, accommodating; the food was so good that the worst bite was better than anything I taste in a typical day; and the culinary surprises were many, including a few Brussels sprouts bites that I actually liked. I didn't think that was possible.

During the dinner, Chantrelle, who operates foodporn.com, interviewed me for a piece that she'll be posting on her site sometime soon. (When I'm aware it's up, I'll let you know.) We ran through a bunch of her standard questions for writers who are also foodies, and we also covered a lot of other topics. I have no idea what she'll write, but I had a fun time talking with her and everyone else at the table.

I certainly cannot afford--in either money or calories--to eat at The French Laundry often, but I will return there any chance I get. It was an amazing meal in which the real thing proved to be every single bit as wonderful as its legend.

*****
I'm finishing and then posting this entry from a plane that is descending to RDU as I type. I'm making a leap of faith in this posting, because the plane could always crash. Dave would argue that there are plenty of asteroids awaiting us, and one could take down this aircraft, but I'm opting to believe in a happy ending for this flight.

A coupon made the bandwidth on this plane free, so I was able to catch up on work while in the air. Technology is sometimes grand. Perhaps tonight I will be able to get a decent amount of sleep. That would be lovely.