Letter of the Week #1: Bent Over by BAR MASA

http://vagendamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/high-maintenance.gif

ELV note: After a rather slow summer, comment-wise, some of our regs (regular ranters) were back in fine form and with a vengeance this past week. Our poetic, Bar Masa pan brought forth this polemic to our perceived pathetic-ness from Kevin Y:

Dear ELV,

In June 2011, I posted here on ELV indicting John Curtas for abetting in the theft perpetrated on me by Bar Masa.

Continue reading “Letter of the Week #1: Bent Over by BAR MASA”

Letter of the Week – Fine Wine (Gouging) Times

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/9/9/1252495743978/Paul-Giamatti-drinking-a--001.jpg

Dear ELV,

One of my first great dining experiences was with my father at Picasso in 1998, and it remains one of the best meals of my life. I’ve returned to Las Vegas dozens of times since then, first for the innumerable temptations your city offers a young man and, as I’ve aged, increasingly for the food.

I believe any frequent visitor to Las Vegas understands and accepts there is a surcharge for the fun. The games favor the house, “complimentary” wi-fi is $25, and food will cost a bit more than back home, even if home is New York or Chicago. What the visitor gets in return, especially folks like me who live as far from New York and Chicago as Las Vegas, is unparalleled access to things like gourmet restaurants. It’s a long, long shot that I could get a seat at Marea, Daniel Boulud, and Per Se on back-to-back-to-back nights, but I can eat at Guy Savoy, Twist, and Sage on any given trip.

Continue reading “Letter of the Week – Fine Wine (Gouging) Times”

Letter of the Century – How Does Taste Evolve?

http://www.osovo.com/diagram/tongue.jpg

Dear Eating Las Vegas,

You recently wrote a caption on a photo you posted on Facebook, “I think I could eat ‘modern Japanese’ food every day of my life and not get bored.

It made me wonder how you, as a food critic who’s refined his palate over the course of many years, came to appreciate a cuisine like this which, admittedly, is not a commonplace offering in most of America?

At what point does taste get refined to appreciate the subtleties of a cuisine like Modern Japanese, or even to start exploring? Any art form (film, music, art, etc.) has levels of refinement, as the curious audience member ventures off to more significant, and more difficult to interpret, levels of appreciation. How does it happen with food?

Inquisitively yours,

Curious George

ELV responds:

The best way we can answer the question(s) is to give you a brief tour of what ELV calls: The Evolution of a Critic.

Our good friend, author, food writer, Esquire magazine food critic and noted chronicler of the history of American food and drink,  John Mariani says there are 3 kinds of food critics: “The slobs, the snobs and the oh goodie goodies.”

Continue reading “Letter of the Century – How Does Taste Evolve?”