Slow Food Savors San Francisco, the world sleeps

This Labor Day weekend, the Slow Food Movement, that began in Bra, Italy in 1986, will invade San Francisco for three days of ponderous preaching, locavore lectures, esoteric eating, and sustainable agriculture.

It couldn’t have picked a better place than that bastion of food snobbery and imperious attitudes about all things culinary. While the Slow Food Movement pretends to be about getting back to the land and savoring life, it’s pretty much been adopted by elite restaurateurs and purveyors of expensive vittles as a way to strut their stuff.

Our buddy, Steven “The Fat Guy” Shaw. founder of www.egullet.org, perfectly encapsulates the criticisms of this “movement” when he equates people who attend Slow Food events with “…the guys in college who go to protests just to meet girls. They couldn’t care less about the ideology.”

Guilty as charged.* What’s your point Steven? I mean if you get that many food snobs in one place, something tasty is bound to happen, right?

Read more about this future weekend of dilettante delights in this New York Times article.

As for me, I subscribed to the Slow Food Journal a few years ago, and decided the whole concept was just about trying to make rich white people feel good about themselves (sorta like Whole Foods, only with denser prose.)

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* On both counts. Attending anti-war protests in the early ’70’s was my standard MO to meet hot, hippie chicks…although my chinos, Topsiders, and polo shirts (not to mention the Nixon/Agnew button I proudly sported) usually made them less than enthusiastic about having casual sex with me.

The Palazzo Restaurants – Part Deux – on Nevada Public Radio

As a public service, and in recognition of the fact that my loyal fans can’t possibly keep up with all of my food reporting venues here in Las Vegas: here is the script for today’s Food For Thought, heard on KNPR-Nevada Public Radio 88.9FM (www.knpr.org). And for you hardworking folks too frazzled and overworked to actually read something, you can click here to hear my commentary.

The Palazzo Restaurants – Part Deux

After skewering some places at our newest mega-hotel last week, I thought I’d report on three places in the Palazzo that I really like. Before I list them, however, I thought a comment was in order about something the designers have done that makes the Big P so much more convenient to locals wishing to drop by for a bite.

 If you recall the nightmare of trying to park in the Venetian – with it’s funereal valet, inadequate spaces, and time consuming trek through the lot and casino to get anywhere – you’ll be happy to know that all flaws have been cured – and sins forgiven – with the design of the underground lot at the Palazzo. With two entrances to it – off Spring Mountain or the Strip – you are deposited within an escalator ride of the main casino floor; where you pop right up in the middle of it; and easily stroll to any one of the twelve or so restaurants surrounding you.

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DJT closes…(sigh)

Joe Isidori, the Executive Chef for the Trump organization called Tuesday to inform me that DJT would be closing immediately, and the concept of the restaurant would be “reworked” to fit better with the economic times.

Whatever DJT becomes it will never be what it once was. For barely four months it’s been bucking the tide of vacancies, foreclosures and recession, and trying to carve a niche for itself as a premium restaurant experience, in an intimate setting, with superior food, that isn’t driven by a casino marketing machine or an absentee celebrity chef.

That it failed is due more to a perfect storm of negative market forces than from anything else. The 1,200 unit Trump International Hotel/Condominium Tower has closed on less than 300 units to date, and the rooms are being rented at 1990 prices, by bargain hunters with no interest in Tasmanian sea trout with yuzu emulsion, roasted jidori chicken with Oregon morels, slow roasted halibut with sweetbreads, or one of the best steaks in town.

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