Porthos said...

Restaurant Politics - These stars are probably accurate if you are a Michelin Food Inspector or NY Times Food Critic. As someone in the industry, if I call in advance and reserve with the use of connections, I am usually taken care of very well. I am assuming most restaurants will go above and beyond the call of duty when they are being rated by an internationally known restaurant guide. This gives us a skewed rating scale and in many ways, it's counter productive to go by their rankings.

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2 years ago, I actually sent in my resume and application to become a "Food Inspector" for Michelin. I had worked in the industry for 3 years by then, and had extensive training working with our staff and in-house chef, isolating flavor profiles of regional foie gras, beef, pork, chicken and duck. Not to mention all sorts of mushrooms, charcuterie, cheeses and even some exotic game.

But the Michelin family, with their snootiness quickly wrote back saying I was still under qualified and too young to have the palate necessary to assess with their ratings scale.

Oh well... I'm not losing any sleep over it. And after the past 2 editions of Michelin NYC... I'm proud to say I am not a Michelin Guide Food Inspector. I completely disagree with their ratings.

Snootier the better.... You could feed them a HotDog from Coney Island or one from Yankee Stadium, and they would all rave about the water logged Sabrett's dog from the Bronx because it was $8 as opposed to the Nathan's Dog at Coney Island which you could pick up for $3.75.