jesteinf wrote:

Kennyz wrote:You're bringing cancer into this argument? Really? You win, I guess.

I am. Not to gain sympathy for the man, but just to make the point that after dealing with something like that I don't begrudge him any success that may be coming his way.

Gotcha. Me neither.

Mike G wrote:Anyway, I don't think it's at all a dumb debate (and I'm a bit sorry to see a moderator characterize it as both outraged and laughable, which hardly seems encouraging of discussion). Lists and awards are trivia, in the end, except that they do have influence and they most certainly offer concise historical insight into the mindset that values X and Y over Z at any moment.

I never said the debate was laughable. And there are definitely folks who are outraged by the Bib Gourmand list. I'm not sure what you're digging at here but you should definitely read what I write more carefully if you're going to bother commenting about it.

=R=

I'm all for bringing more wealthy euro tourism dollars to chicago's restauranteurs, but why is there a Michelin Chicago twitter account? It's so bizarre to see them tweeting the out of date info in the not-yet-available-but-already-wrong book about carrier @kith...I hope they don't go on about Chef gras and his marathons if L20 makes 3. What an odd promotional medium choice if all the tweets are pre-written/direct from the book...

gastrique wrote:I'm all for bringing more wealthy euro tourism dollars to chicago's restauranteurs, but why is there a Michelin Chicago twitter account? It's so bizarre to see them tweeting the out of date info in the not-yet-available-but-already-wrong book about carrier @kith...I hope they don't go on about Chef gras and his marathons if L20 makes 3. What an odd promotional medium choice if all the tweets are pre-written/direct from the book...

A similar mistake was made by a local writer, who should have known better. As bad as Michelin's mistake was, I cringed when I read Phil Vettel's entry on The Stew yesterday (here, thanks to Google cache) in which Vettel congratulates Sara and Germain Roignant, for their Bib for La Creperie:

Phil Vettel in yesterday's The Stew wrote:For Sara and Germain Roignant, who have operated La Creperie since 1972, the Bib Gourmand is a singular honor.

Sara passed away years ago. (The Stew entry has since been corrected, but still, ouch.)

Lost in much of this is the fact that Michelin is doing a few very different things. The big show is and always has been the 3 stars and to a much lesser extent the 2s. Even Ronnie hasn't had the breadth of personal experience and institutional memory of the Michelin secret shoppers to place Alinea in the context of its "peers" around the world. I might not agree with the criteria or even the decisions, but I can recognize the intrinsic value in the Guide's judgment about high-end, everyone-knows-about-them-already restaurants.

The Bibs to me are worthless as information -- certainly here in Chicago, in NY, LA and most any other place that I might visit in the ordinary course. I don't need more info about places in Euro tourist-friendly areas where folks otherwise largely unfamiliar with cheap eats in Chicago enjoyed lunch on their days off from scrutinizing fancy restaurants for work. That said, the Bib lists are clearly going to be the most-used info for the Euro intended audience that may or may not know what an LTH or a TOC is.

I do either regret or relish the thought of some asshat Parisian trying Twin Anchors, reveling in Sinatra and Joey Bishop hokum, and believing they've had BBQ.

Good for Twin Anchors. I'd love to know why them and not also Bruna's ('33), or Club Lago (52'), or Bertucci's ('35), or Schulien's (1886-'99), or Schaller's (1881) or whatever other boozy neighborhood place with atmosphere and food. Might be the neighborhood.

Given what the Michelin list is, I'm a lot more (pleasantly) surprised by the inclusion of places like Mixteco, Smoque and Smak-Tak than I am (negatively) surprised by the inclusion of places like Ann Sather and Twin Anchors. About half the places on the list are either GNRs or generally well-liked by LTHers. That's a much higher ratio of good to bad than I'd expect. I'm not saying I agree with everything on the list, or even most of the list, just that it exceeded my (admittedly quite low) expectations.

Not to really add anything to the discussion, but I haven't seen a picture of the "tag" anywhere:


IMG_20101111_152619 by jtkjr, on Flickr

Taken in front of Urban Belly.

SSDD

eli wrote:Given what the Michelin list is, I'm a lot more (pleasantly) surprised by the inclusion of places like Mixteco, Smoque and Smak-Tak than I am (negatively) surprised by the inclusion of places like Ann Sather and Twin Anchors. About half the places on the list are either GNRs or generally well-liked by LTHers. That's a much higher ratio of good to bad than I'd expect. I'm not saying I agree with everything on the list, or even most of the list, just that it exceeded my (admittedly quite low) expectations.

I must admit, I agree with eli here. Of course, as noted, there are some real head-scratchers (the inclusion of Frances alone is enough to give any NYC deli-aficionado reason to swear off Michelin or Chicago delis or both forever), but a lot of inclusions that generally seem in-the-know and are LTH-friendly (I'll add Publican, Paramount, Nightwood, West Town, La Petite Folie, Nana, Spacca, Mexique to the above mentions). As a general observation, I find the Michelin sensibility to be far more comfortable with the white-linen, cleanliness-is-next-to godliness, and-don't-forget-the-wine-list ambience than the often more down-to-earth characteristics of stellar eating establishments found in localities other than in France. In Italy I use the Michelin for ristoranti, never for trattorie.

I had the same reaction you're having when Michelin came to NY and I was still living there full time. Some of the choices seemed unbelievable--and were so to many New Yorkers.

In one sense, sure, a critique is just that--someone's (or a group's) opinion.

But, there are some "absolutes." I mean, if Taco Bell got on the Bib list, that would be viewed as "wrong" by probably 99% of people.

I'm in the camp that says the choice of Ann Sather is "wrong." Mercifully, I haven't had the privilege of dining at Twin Anchors, but I have at Ann Sather's. To put it on any culinary list speaks more, to me, about the one rating it than the restaurant.

FWIW, there's a lot of support on the Twitterverse for Twin Anchors (always good to step away from LTH for a different perspective). I mean, if you think about it, if you're a Euro-tourist who has and knows none of the BBQ prejudices, Twin Anchors seems like a classic Chicago tavern. I bet most Europeans would eat just happily there, not caring one bit about the history of regional BBQ in the US. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes. Twin Anchors is representative of a Chicago style of ribs, so this one is not the head-scratcher for me. (Now, Frances' - I don't get.)

aschie30 wrote:FWIW, there's a lot of support on the Twitterverse for Twin Anchors (always good to step away from LTH for a different perspective). I mean, if you think about it, if you're a Euro-tourist who has and knows none of the BBQ prejudices, Twin Anchors seems like a classic Chicago tavern. I bet most Europeans would eat just happily there, not caring one bit about the history of regional BBQ in the US. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes. Twin Anchors is representative of a Chicago style of ribs, so this one is not the head-scratcher for me. (Now, Frances' - I don't get.)

Couldn't concur more heartily with your openess to Twin Anchors or your bewilderment at France's.

I'll do some recon of Frances' this weekend. It will be interested to see if they get completely slammed. It will also be interesting to see how many people scratching their heads the sidewalk will accommodate.

I talked about France’s in my Reader article about delis in Chicago. What struck me this morning, reading the online comments, is that they’re so similar to the criticism being leveled at the Michelin team: “you forgot,” “how could you not mention,” etc. etc. It’s inevitable that with any list, many will be irked that you didn’t mirror their preferences more exactly.

aschie30 wrote:FWIW, there's a lot of support on the Twitterverse for Twin Anchors (always good to step away from LTH for a different perspective). I mean, if you think about it, if you're a Euro-tourist who has and knows none of the BBQ prejudices, Twin Anchors seems like a classic Chicago tavern. I bet most Europeans would eat just happily there, not caring one bit about the history of regional BBQ in the US. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes. Twin Anchors is representative of a Chicago style of ribs, so this one is not the head-scratcher for me.

I heartily concur with this. And yes, it's disappointing that places we love have been left off the list (and visitors may not find them) but that's an innate part of lists. They've never going to entirely please anyone. My personal disappointment with the content of this list is greatly tempered by my overall interest in Michelin's perspective and the outside attention being focused on Chicago.

David Hammond wrote:I talked about France’s in my Reader article about delis in Chicago. What struck me this morning, reading the online comments, is that they’re so similar to the criticism being leveled at the Michelin team: “you forgot,” “how could you not mention,” etc. etc. It’s inevitable that with any list, many will be irked that you didn’t mirror their preferences more exactly.

Exactly.

=R=

aschie30 wrote:FWIW, there's a lot of support on the Twitterverse for Twin Anchors (always good to step away from LTH for a different perspective).

I weigh in with Kevin Pang on the Tribune blog about Twin Anchors and its Bib Gourmand award. Twin Anchors and the merits of "Meat Jello"

I stopped by Twin Anchors on Wednesday after work for a burger and a beer, it's in my rotation of neighborhood places I can walk to when I don't feel like cooking. Didn't seem any busier than usual for a weeknight but it might have been too soon for any "Bib effect". I'll walk by on Saturday to see if there are more people that usual waiting outside.

G Wiv wrote:I weigh in with Kevin Pang on the Tribune blog about Twin Anchors and its Bib Gourmand award. Twin Anchors and the merits of "Meat Jello"

I just came across an art project that made me think of the recent discussions of Twin Anchors and meat jello. Rafaël Rozendaal is an Amsterdam-based artist who works on the internet and tweets everything he eats, but more interesting are the ways in which he sometimes takes food as the subject of his work. In the last few years, he's made several websites that play with aural and tactile dimensions of food. He kind of turns food into musical instruments.

Anyway, recently, another artist, Agnes Bolt, who I think is an MFA student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, created analog versions of several Rozendaal projects. Rozendaal's original Jello Time (2007) doesn't evoke anything particularly carnivorous, but Bolt's remake immediately brought to my mind meat jello. If you can't eat it, play (with) it:

(The meat jello part is just the first minute.)



If you want to see some of Rozendaal's original sites and compare them to Bolt's analog versions that run after the meat jello segment above, see Popcorn Painting (2008) and To the Water (2010)--my kind of cheap entertainment.

happy_stomach wrote:Bolt's remake immediately brought to my mind meat jello. If you can't eat it, play (with) it:

The most impressive thing about that video is the fact that the Twin Anchors ribs survived the transport to Pittsburgh is such good shape.

For those of you not following Grant Achatz on twitter, he just posted this interesting tidbit:

Rumors of an early leak of the to-be-named Michelin Starred Chicago Restaurants have appeared on various sites, including 312 Dining Diva. It will be interesting to see if the following list holds up when the official announcement is made this Wednesday:

http://312diningdiva.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ed-by.html

eddie5721 wrote:Rumors of an early leak of the to-be-named Michelin Starred Chicago Restaurants have appeared on various sites, including 312 Dining Diva. It will be interesting to see if the following list holds up when the official announcement is made this Wednesday:

http://312diningdiva.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ed-by.html

I'm calling fake...partially because my L2O experience was * at best, but mostly because I seriously doubt that Les Nomades would have been ignored entirely.

Time Out has posted a piece on this here http://tinyurl.com/29ru225 and the twitterverse is abuzz. Very odd.

Ursiform wrote:Time Out has posted a piece on this here http://tinyurl.com/29ru225 and the twitterverse is abuzz. Very odd.

O Ria-lly?

kl1191 wrote:

eddie5721 wrote:Rumors of an early leak of the to-be-named Michelin Starred Chicago Restaurants have appeared on various sites, including 312 Dining Diva. It will be interesting to see if the following list holds up when the official announcement is made this Wednesday:

http://312diningdiva.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ed-by.html

I'm calling fake...partially because my L2O experience was * at best, but mostly because I seriously doubt that Les Nomades would have been ignored entirely.

QFT. No way Les Nomades can't get a single.

If this list is supposedly taken from a hard copy of the book which shipped early, I say pics or it didn't happen.

Also, I work at a restaurant which has been contacted by Michelin and does not appear on this list. It is certainly possible that the Michelin people are contacting every restaurant in the guide, not just those receiving stars, but it seems unlikely.

As long we're all speculating about this leaked information, it doesn't seem accurate to me that Chicago would only have 23 total starred restaurants (as the leaked list indicates) when San Francisco had 44 and New York had 57. It seems odd that Michelin would even produce a Chicago guide if they only found 23 total places here that were worthy of any stars at all.

=R=

What this proves is that as disturbing as it is that people care what Michelin says, it's far more disturbing that they care what 312diningdiva or Julia Kramer say.

Ursiform wrote:For those of you not following Grant Achatz on twitter, he just posted this interesting tidbit:

What did you use to get that nice image from Twitter? Once in a while I like to do the same thing but different programs have different success rates.

pairs4life wrote:What did you use to get that nice image from Twitter? Once in a while I like to do the same thing but different programs have different success rates.

Nothing fancy, I just hit the print screen button on my laptop and pasted it into MS Paint and cropped. I usually have paint up and running all day as I moderate on a social networking game and often have to grab screen-shots of miscreant behavior, so it's kind of a knee-jerk thing for me. I see, I screenie.

Kennyz wrote:What this proves is that as disturbing as it is that people care what Michelin says, it's far more disturbing that they care what 312diningdiva or Julia Kramer say.

Odd, then, that you directed a newbie to the Michelin Bib Gourmand list earlier today. Wait...am I speaking with Good Kenny or Evil Kenny?