Here’s the logic.

Last year, based on the paper’s own numbers, there were nearly 15,000 ballots cast in the survey. That may seem like a lot, and frankly it is. However, if we all joined together, and brought our friends, family and coworkers in on the scheme, we could form a powerful voting block that could influence the results.

But—and this is a big but—it only works if we all vote on a common slate of local businesses.

This was why I created the FUSSYlittleBALLOT. The idea isn’t that the businesses on the slate are the best of the best. Rather, that we can all agree that these businesses are among the best, and far better from some of the other schlock that’s been praised by the paper.

While the slate was never just one person’s opinion, people had a problem voting for a scheme in which they had no direct input. So this year, that part is going to change. It’s time to explain how it’s going to work.

Over the next several weeks, in advance of the Times Union’s release of the 2012 questionnaire (which typically comes out the first week of April) you and I will be discussing what places are indeed the best of the region and why.

I’m calling this Phase Two. If you missed Phase One, just take a peek on the upper right hand corner of the page. It’s not too late to add your signature to the open letter.

Now let’s be clear on one thing. This isn’t a poll and it’s not a vote. It’s a fact-finding mission and it’s a chance for you to make yourself heard. The comments that I receive during Phase Two will greatly influence what businesses ultimately make it onto the FUSSYlittleBALLOT 3.0. However if I get a bunch of ballot stuffers on here trying to convince me that Coccadotts should be the best bakery, they should know in advance they will just be wasting their time (sorry Rachel).

We do need people to come together for this to work. So here’s the plan.

Instead of telling me which business you think is THE BEST, I want to know your top three, in rank order. And I’ll also be asking for a bit more thought than just a list of three establishments. In this case, the why is just as important as the what.

Naturally I will be asking for individual locations, as I hope Phase One has some kind of impact on the 2012 ballot.

We will start this process on Wednesday. For the sake of everyone’s well being, categories will be grouped together. So start thinking about what it means to be the best grocery store. Since this will fundamentally be about where you go and buy ingredients to cook with, we’ll also include the best ethnic markets and farmers markets.

It’s a lot to tackle. But I really only want to do one of these a week. Otherwise this project could take almost every day until April. And there’s a lot more to fuss about than just the Times Union.

Take, for example, all those unanswered questions. I hope to get to those tomorrow.

Surely there are plenty of people who would like to change the annual Times Union Best of the Capital Region poll. I imagine that many of them are lobbying to include a category that serves their personal self-interest. Given the tenacious, entrepreneurial, and competitive nature of our local cupcake bakers, they must be calling weekly to try and find a way onto the ballot.

Let me begin by saying that I have no horse in this race.

My family moved to the region over four years ago from Berkeley, California. The transition was not easy. But over the years, I have diligently sought out magnificent and wonderful places that make the Capital Region truly special: fantastic restaurants that one would not expect to find in a region outside the top 50 DMAs and unique offerings that cannot be found anywhere else.

And every year when the Best of the Capital Region poll is released, I’m crestfallen to see none of these places even get mentioned. To dismiss this poll as a popularity contest is doing the paper and the community a great disservice. What could be a source of great regional pride has recently only served to reinforce the stereotypes of Albany as a backwater of civilized society.

Furthermore, these feelings are not mine alone. Others have noticed and are similarly discouraged.

To be sure, improving the results will take time. But the first step is fixing the questionnaire. I have three specific suggestions that will help to move the poll in the right direction.

1) Individual Locations

There are many people who have suggested that chains have no place on the Best of the Capital Region results. I’m not entirely convinced of that, especially since in many cases the local outposts are owned and operated by members of our community.

However, as consistent as any chain may try to be, there are variations between locations. This is certainly true for the Best local grocery store category. It’s really impossible for most people to take a holistic view of a chain grocer in the region, given its relatively large footprint. Votes become more like guesses based on a reader’s personal experience.

Not only would it be more accurate, but it would also be more useful and interesting to ask people what is the best individual local grocery store. It would give The Fresh Market a chance to take the first place in the category, and it could wake people up to the splendor that is the Slingerland’s Price Chopper or their store on Central and New Karner. Hannaford could take it with their Latham store. It’s anyone’s ballgame.

This logic should hold true for EVERY CATEGORY. Best individual drug store/pharmacy, best individual pizza place, etcetera.

Will it be harder for our larger local chains to win than in years past? Sure. But it will also make it harder for places like Pizza Hut, whose mere presence on the list of Best pizza is insulting for a region where the standard for pizza is higher than most of the country. It should also give a better chance to smaller places that make truly amazing pizza, like DeFazio’s and Pizza King.

2) The Categories Themselves

When this survey started 15 years ago, I understand that the Capital Region was a very different place. Perhaps there weren’t a lot of ethnic restaurants and it made a lot of sense to try and group them by their geographic region.

But categories like Best Chinese/Japanese/Korean restaurant and Best Indonesian/Thai/Vietnamese restaurant have to go. As one of my readers succinctly put it, “They are embarrassing and make us look like hillbillies standing next to the outhouse with a straw between our teeth.”

We have a glut of sushi and teppanyaki restaurants, which could easily fall in two category, but at the very least need to be extracted from Chinese and Korean cuisines. We have plenty of restaurants that offer exclusively Chinese food, which should absolutely have its own category. Yes, there are still some places that offer a little bit of both. For those I would suggest an umbrella Best Pan Asian for beloved institutions like Ichiban, which continue to serve both Chinese and Japanese cuisine.

Another ethnocentric question on the poll asks readers to vote on the best ethnic market. All the responses are Italian. We have an amazing variety of South Asian, East Asian, African, and Latin markets in the region. This may need to be broken up into two categories as well: Best Italian market and Best ethnic market.

Then there are the things that are unique to our region that are completely missing from this list. We are in the heart of apple country, and there is no question about Best apple orchard? The Capital Region also has a unique style of hot dog, the three-inch wiener with the works, and a Best mini-hot dog with meat sauce category would help to draw attention to this regional specialty. The same holds true for Best fish-fry sandwich.

At the end of this letter I’ve attached a list of categories that has been revised to reflect the above.

3) Best versus Favorite

There is a fine line between the things someone might like the most (aka their favorite) and what they know achieves a higher standard (aka the best).

For example, my favorite local bakery is Crisan. I love them because they are committed to using high quality ingredients, it’s conveniently located, they accommodate last minute orders, their baking skills are excellent, they offer a great product at an outstanding value, and I enjoy chatting with the staff. Crisan may make the best pastry in Albany, but it is not the best bakery in the area.

That is Mrs. London’s. Their croissants are the best I’ve had anywhere, and they also bake some killer bread. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s out of the way. Sure, it’s a little precious inside. But it’s the best.

I believe that your readers can make these distinctions themselves if they are reminded at the beginning of the poll that the Times Union isn’t looking for their favorites, but rather their thoughts on which individual location is truly the best. It may not be the place they go every day. Likely it is not. It may be the place where one goes for special occasions.  The best place may even be the one that is just a little bit better than your favorite spot, it’s just a bit off the beaten path.

In some ways, this last bit is a matter of semantics. In other ways it’s the one thing that gets to the heart of the issue. Very few people would say that Subway makes the best sandwiches if they sat down and thought about the difference between The Best and their favorite. Subway may have the best value, it may have the best speed of service, or it might be the most convenient. But I refuse to believe that a plurality of your readers cannot recognize there are better sandwiches in the area.

As you retool the Best of the Capital Region ballot for 2012, please consider the above suggestions. I look forward to the day when the picture painted by the major Albany newspaper matches the Albany I’ve come to know and love, and getting this ballot right is the first step in that direction.

Sincerely,
Daniel Berman
and the undersigned
————————————————————————————————————
Note: That means if you agree, please say so in the comments below.
————————————————————————————————————

What does it matter what Cheryl Clark says about a restaurant, or Ruth Fantasia, or Steve Barnes? They are just individuals. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, one can call upon Yelp, Urban Spoon, Trip Advisor, Open Table, or simply Google a restaurant to read countless reviews and see how it stacks up.

These online reviews capture multiple dining experiences over many nights from many different perspectives. The information that can be gleaned from these sources is invaluable. Sure, sometimes there may be conflicting reports, but when you find a place that is almost unanimously loved, you know it’s a winner.

Like when you search for the highest rated sandwich under the Delis category Cardona’s Market pops up to the top of the list with 4.5 stars on 36 reviews. That’s phenomenal, and even if your heart belongs to another Italian deli, surely you can agree that Cardona’s is indeed one of the best sandwich makers in the Capital District.

But the newspaper does indeed matter. It matters a lot. Especially when it conducts a broad poll of our populace and makes pronouncements about what things are The Best of The Capital Region. You know, like Subway.

Every year this survey kills me. Instead of instilling a sense of pride, the results widely elicit a feeling of shame. This year I’m being proactive, and I’d like your help.

You may be wondering, what’s the big deal? The poll is simply a popularity contest. Of course Subway would win. There are more of them than any other sandwich shop, so naturally they will get more votes.

Here’s the problem.

This poll affects not only how the region sees itself, but also how those outside the region see us. When people consider relocating to the area or take the next step and move here, among other things, this annual poll is a resource for information. Even established residents use the results to help them make purchasing decisions. This is why businesses campaign for votes and try to maintain their reputation as The Best Whatever in the Capital Region.

For the past several years the poll results have not painted a flattering picture of the region. And frankly, it infuriates me. The area may not be the most cosmopolitan in the country, but a lot of our best stuff is never recognized by the survey.

And I’m starting to realize that part of the problem is the ballot itself.

Take Chinese restaurants for example. Ala Shanghai does not even get a mention in the Times Union poll despite being far and away the most highly rated Chinese restaurant on Yelp with 4.5 stars on 49 reviews. Why? Well, because it is competing in a category called, Best Chinese/Japanese/Korean restaurant and we happen to live in a place that loves its teppanyaki.

We actually have a handful of decent Chinese restaurants, which include Shining Rainbow, CCK, Hong Kong Bakery, Taiwan Noodle and Emperor’s. Don’t even dare try to tell me that Tai Pan in Clifton Park should be on that list. But that’s beside the point.

What we don’t have is a ton of Indonesian or Vietnamese restaurants. Still, that’s no excuse to merge these separate and distinct regional cuisines with Thai to form the dreaded Best Indonesian / Thai / Vietnamese restaurant category. Kinnarree, which I believe to be the best Thai in the area, doesn’t even get mentioned, since it’s squeezed out by the fine dining Indonesian restaurant Yono’s.

And those are only some of the worst offenders, I could go on.

Other categories could be made more specific in order to hone in on local businesses that are truly special and less on generic chains that mar our culinary landscape. Take the Best Sandwich category for example. If that were changed to Best Italian Deli (of which there are countless in the region) Subway would fall off the list, and we might be treated to a sampling of truly delicious sandwich choices.

This isn’t just about complaining. Did I mention that I have a plan?

Don’t tell anyone, but I did a little digging and found out that Michael Janairo at the Times Union is responsible for putting together the poll this year. And he has asked me for my thoughts and suggestions in writing so that they can be shared with the team over there.

But I want you involved. Yes, you. Last year, I took on a similar campaign a bit further downstream, and did not get your input early on. That was a mistake. In the months ahead, I’m going to ask for your support in pushing this agenda forward, and am looking forward to many conversations about what places are truly the best in the region.

For now, please tell me what else you think can be done to improve the survey. Be as specific as you wish. With your input I will cobble together an open letter to the Times Union that I hope I can get many of you to sign (or at least leave a comment with your support). We may or may not be able to get the changes on the ballot, but it’s a worthwhile effort to try.

You can see the results of last year’s Best of the Capital Region here. The section that pertains to dining is here. Although there are some food related entries in the goods and services section too.

The categories that really concern us are:
1)    Best local grocery store
2)    Best wine store
3)    Best beer store
4)    Best bakery
5)    Best ethnic market
6)    Best farmers market
7)    Best health food store (single location)
8)    Best restaurant to open in the past year
9)    Best restaurant for kids
10)  Best hamburger
11)   Best pizza
12)  Best sandwich shop
13)  Best Chinese/Japanese/Korean restaurant
14)  Best Indonesian/Thai/Vietnamese restaurant
15)  Best Indian/Pakistani restaurant
16)  Best Mexican/Central/South American restaurant
17)  Best Italian restaurant
18)  Best ice cream
19)  Best hot dogs
20)  Best sports bar
21)  Best coffee joint (single location)
22)  Best diner

I have some very strong feelings for improving most of these. And there are notable categories that are conspicuously absent. Seriously, how can there be no Best fish fry? And it’s absolutely criminal that there is no category for Best apple orchard.

You’ve seen a few of my thoughts above. Now it’s time to add your own below, or forever hold your peace.

Think about this: If a tub of movie popcorn is the same fat and calorie load of three Big Macs, then getting one Big Mac can’t be that bad. It would seem as if the well-intentioned people at the Center of Science in the Public Interest have finally begun to understand this relationship.

Mrs. Fussy and I received a solicitation from them in the mail. The envelope included a sheet, which on one side has a list of ten offensive food items, and on the other a list of ten “better alternatives”. This time around, none of the offenders were compared to a multiple of big macs. However the Oh Fudge! Shake from Cold Stone Creamery was colorfully described as, “the saturated fat content of two 16-oz T-bone steaks plus a buttered baked potato all blended into a handy 24 oz cup.”

In theory I should love these guys. They are fighting the good fight about over processed junk foods and out of control portion sizes, all in the service of getting Americans to eat better. But in practice, I can’t stand them. This mailer just goes to reinforce this fact. And it’s not just because they named Chipotle as one of the worst of the worst.

Although that is a part of it. To add insult to injury they compared Chipotle’s chicken burrito to Subway’s 6-inch BLT Classic. It’s blasphemous, and it’s wrong on multiple levels, which I’ll get to in just a minute.

Right now, I want tell you what is on this otherwise sensible list of terrible foods.

1)    Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie
2)    Olive Garden’s Tour of Italy
3)    Campbell’s Condensed soup
4)    Chipotle Chicken Burrito
5)    The Cheesecake Factory’s Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake
6)    Pillsbury Grands! Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls with Icing
7)    Land O’Lakes Margarine
8)    Starbucks Venti White Chocolate Mocha
9)    Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream
10)  Cold Stone Creamery’s Oh Fudge! Shake

Processed foods are filled with sodium. Margarine and Pillsbury rolls are filled with trans fat. A giant 12-ounce slice of cake that’s half a foot tall is bad for you. Drinking a coffee filled with fat and sugar and topped with more fat isn’t a good idea.

I get it. Don’t eat like an a-hole.

And when you load up a Chipotle burrito with cheese and sour cream, it’s going to be just as bad for you as when you load up a baked potato with cheese and sour cream. Just because they have it there doesn’t mean you have to eat it.

Frankly, that’s why the chicken burrito made the list. Because of cheese and sour cream. Their cheese isn’t even all that tasty. Sure, it’s made from the milk of cows that weren’t treated with rBGH. It’s shredded daily from blocks of cheese in house, so it doesn’t need any anti-caking agents. But I’ve never felt it added much to a burrito. And while sour cream is certainly decadent, I only get it when I’m in the mood to cut the heat of their spiciest salsa.

So yes, should you get a chicken burrito with pintos, cheese, sour cream and fresh tomato salsa, you end up with something that has 970 calories, 17.5 grams (CSPI rounds up to 18 grams) of saturated fat and 2,200 mg of sodium.

Apparently that is similar to the fat and calories of THREE six-inch BLT Classic Subs at Subway. Except the stuff at Subway barely qualifies as food, while Chipotle uses better quality ingredients than most fancy restaurants.

Now leave out the high fat dairy, substitute vegetarian black beans for the bacon enriched pintos, and add the lower sodium green tomatillo salsa (which happens to be tastier too), and suddenly that burrito shrinks to 745 calories, 5.5 grams of saturated fat and 1,670 mg of sodium.

Is it health food? No.
Is it wholesome food? I would argue yes.

I don’t want to belabor sodium guidelines. Eating out involves a lot of salt. From what I’ve seen, it would seem that people 2-51 without other risk factors, can safely consume up to 2,300 mg of sodium per day.

If you want to lower the sodium content of your Chipotle meal further you can go the taco route with their soft corn tortillas. Three of them filled with steak, black beans and red tomatillo salsa have only 530 calories, 2 grams of saturated fat and 1,155 mg of sodium.

But all of this Chipotle stuff is beside the point.

Because when you turn the page of the sheet to find out what the “better alternatives” are to these vilified foods for people who eat like a-holes, you are treated to the following list of not so much foods as ingredients: Sweet potatoes, mangoes, unsweetened Greek yogurt, broccoli, wild salmon, crispbreads (like Wasa or Ryvita), garbanzo beans, watermelon, butternut squash, and leafy greens.

Oh really? Fruits and vegetables are good for me? I never knew.
Jerks. This organization is just a pack of kneebiters. I’m serious.

Sure, some of their findings are interesting, and maybe even helpful for those people who don’t have the time or inclination to read labels. Like the Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie, which has a label on the box declaring its 520 calories, 11 grams of saturated fat and 800 mg of sodium. What the box makes less clear is that these figures are for one serving, and the individual pot pie is actually two servings.

But the Center for Science in the Public Interest doesn’t seem to acknowledge there is a place in our lives for indulgence. Yes, people should probably not have a venti white chocolate mocha everyday. I’d argue they shouldn’t have one at all on the grounds of the white chocolate alone. But if you want a coffee that is sweet and fatty, you probably know it is sweet and fatty. And it will be no surprise to learn that enough sweet and fatty coffees will probably just make you fatty.

Just like it’s no surprise that even though Subway has items that are low in fat and calories, it also has footlong sandwiches like the Chicken and Bacon Ranch Melt. And without even picking it apart to see how nasty the ingredients are that go inside of that monstrosity, it measures in at 1,140 calories, 20.2 grams of saturated fat and 2,170 mg of sodium. Yet somehow this disgusting chemistry experiment gone wrong didn’t quite find its way onto the CSPI’s list.

Here’s the bottom line, stolen once again from Michael Pollan. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” And forget about all these numbers. Because there is a middle ground between eating like an A-hole and eating like a monk. And these people seem to entirely miss the point.

Soon after Gourmet or Bon Appetit published one of its annual reader polls naming Chablis their least favorite wine, Saveur did a multi-page feature on this far too often maligned region. And with that, they stole my heart.

The quick story with Chablis is that the name has been stolen in America and appropriated for cheap white wine sold in jugs. Chablis, however, is a serious wine region that produces a unique and delicious expression of chardonnay.

So the big and bloated food magazines are suffering and going out of business. Their advertisers are spending money elsewhere and publishers are practically giving away subscriptions for free. But the smaller operations like Cooks Illustrated that have a different revenue model seem to be thriving.

Now, there’s another small food magazine on the market. Have you seen it?

It’s called Lucky Peach and it’s a media darling.

In June it was featured on HuffPo.
In July it was written up in The New York Times.
Earlier this month there was a story on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Just yesterday it was featured on Time.com.

And I want it. But as of yet, haven’t gotten my grubby little mitts on a copy. The first issue all about ramen did so well it went into multiple printings, and that’s a positive sign for the future.

Like many good things in life, it’s not inexpensive. At $10 per issue it’s a lot more than you would spend on a typical magazine. But people are paying it. Because it’s not really a magazine, it’s a quarterly journal of food writing.

That means it’s smart, doesn’t take advertising, and only comes out four times a year.

This is what magazines used to be. A long long time ago GQ used to be Gentleman’s Quarterly. And it used to cost money to read it, and you could only get it four times a year. That made it special. It was something to pore over, it was something you waited for with anticipation, and it was something you read cover to cover.

These days most people spend less than an hour with the magazines they subscribe to, if they even read them at all.

On my last trip to San Francisco I stopped into City Lights Bookstore and was amazed to find that in this modern digital age people were still producing zines. I found a couple on food and carried them with me around town. I read them on the train, and as I waited for carts to come around at dim sum parlors.

To me, these were precious little booklets. And I enjoyed their independent spirit and the enthusiasm they had for the subject of food. From what I’ve seen, that’s exactly what Lucky Peach is about, but only on a significantly larger scale with some of the country’s top culinary professionals and writers along for the ride.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much this warms my heart. Now I’ve just got to get one.

Say what you will about the impending and inevitable death of printed news, the Times Union has a certain degree of gravitas unmatched by any other local news source.

There have been voices suggesting that the FUSSYlittleBLOG abandon this crazy scheme and just publish its own best of list. But there are plenty of lists out there already. For example, just last week Metroland put out its annual Best of 2011 issue. You can see their Food & Drink picks here.

Naturally, I have some thoughts on their selections.

There are two things off the bat that differentiate this poll from the Times Union one. First, the food section is much much longer, and goes into some very specific categories. Second, the winners are editor-selected and not picked by the readers.

Actually, I think this is a good way to go, although I do take issue with a few categories. There are 64 winners in food and drinks alone. Really there are only 63 winners, since Antipasto’s in Clifton Park won in two categories. We’ll get to that in just a minute. Let’s focus on the categories for just a moment.

One gets the feeling there are a lot of places the editors of Metroland love, and they expand the categories to include them all. The best example of this is the honor of “Best Scratch Cafe” bestowed upon the Scratch Bakery Café. While I understand the desire to highlight one’s favorite places, creating bespoke categories like this seems a bit disingenuous when compiling a list of the region’s best.

We do have a lot of pizza places, but even so, naming four different establishments the Best of 2011 seems a little generous. At least the three different “Best Italian” restaurants are given subheadings. Some more specificity on the pizza categories would go far. Perhaps something like, “best gourmet pizza” or “best wood fired pizza.”

I’m simply delighted by a handful of the winners.

Kinnaree was named Best Pan-Asian (new). But somehow it feels like short shrift when it follows Sushi-Thai Garden as Best Pan-Asian Restaurant. Kinnaree is better, so maybe next year we’ll see it in its rightful spot when the restaurant is no longer new.

Two generally overlooked classics made the list: Peter Pause for Best Lunch and Famous Lunch for Best Hot Dog. These are among my favorite places in the region, and I’m glad to see them included in this round up. Because they truly are some of the best places to eat.

Additionally, Caffe Vero was named Best Espresso, and I’m glad to see these guys get the recognition they deserve. Nobody in the area takes espresso as seriously as do the people behind this shop.

Frankly, there are a lot of selections that the list gets right or mostly right.

I suppose everyone is entitled to a few missteps, especially on such a big list. But it’s the ones they get wrong that really leave me wondering about the critical capacity of the editors.

Let’s start with Antipasto’s since it was the only business that won twice, and should only have walked away with “Best Capital Region Approximation of a Vegetarian Restaurant.” I’ve tried a couple of their pizzas and they were simply awful. The plain cheese was just acrid and tasted of burnt rubber. But that was still better than the vegetarian sausage pie, where the fake sausage added an unappealing mush to the already substandard pizza rendering it entirely inedible. But don’t just take my word for it, the Times Union also had an atrocious experience here. 

I feel for vegetarians, but luckily they now have Parivar, which is entirely vegetarian, and you would never even know it.

Emperor’s is tough, because in all honesty it used to be the best in the area. I still think they make the best chow fun. But Ala Shanghai has entirely eclipsed them in the quality of their ingredients and the preparation of the food. I understand that some times it’s hard to let go of the loves of one’s past.

Sage Bistro is a puzzling choice for Best New Restaurant. After all, it opened with a lot of excitement that chef Un-Hui Filomeno would be in the kitchen again. She is loved around the region, but left the new restaurant almost four months ago. The menu is long, disjointed and overpriced. It is exactly the opposite kind of place from Garden Bistro 24, which I campaigned for in this category during the Times Union poll.

Coccadotts is popular since it was the first cupcake bakery in the region. But I had their stuff for my birthday, and for the most part was wholly unimpressed. If you want a better cupcake, go visit Bake Me a Cake Next Door. I’m still not sure they are the best, but I do know they are better than Coccadotts.

You know, I could nitpick this list to death. Maybe I already have.

But I think this shows the challenges of just writing up a best of the area list on one’s own. Sure, it takes the mob mentality out of the equation so the chains aren’t present, which is a big plus. On the other hand the list feels a bit capricious as personal tastes can vary dramatically.

Even so, Antipasto’s? Twice?
That had to be a joke. Right?

I don’t know why the subject of The Best has been coming up recently. Maybe it has something to do with the Times Union’s annual reader poll of The Best in the Capital Region. What is really interesting is that I seem to be embroiled in several conversations that shouldn’t be able to exist in the same universe.

Over here on the FLB, B and I are going back and forth about how, should the FUSSYlittleBALLOT be successful, it would improve the state of affairs of food in Albany. While he permits for the possibility that he could be wrong, B asserts that when people

See their favorite didn’t make the top spot, they just think that’s stupid and keep going to the place they like. This is just human nature, and like differences in personal taste, you aren’t gonna change it.

Yet over on Facebook, Kristi Gustafson was dismayed by some of her favorite spots blatantly campaigning for votes in the Times Union poll. Due to some freak social media glitch I can’t seem to locate that conversation. However, the very notion that local businesses would alienate their core consumers in order to try to reach the top of this list indicates how important being voted best is for bringing people through the door.

For the record I think B is only partially correct. I believe the businesses campaigning for votes are keenly aware of the poll’s impact, and I’m delighted by the irony that the TU’s social media strategist is put off by the social media strategies initiated by the paper’s poll.

We can hash this all out in the comments section. Because what I really want to elaborate on this morning was the conversation I was attempting to have with Kristi in 140 character chunks about the difference between The Best and The Favorite.

Honestly, if the Times Union simply changed the name of the poll I’d feel a lot better.

If the annual poll was simply called, “Reader’s Favorites” and not lauded as “The Best of the Capital Region” I would be a lot more understanding about the nature of the results. Favorites are subjective. Favorites can easily be decided upon by a popularity contest. Favorites can’t reasonably be debated.

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?

If coffee makes you gag, I’ll never be able to convince you that your favorite flavor should be coffee. If rocky road recalls precious memories of childhood, there is nothing I can say to undo that powerful association. Your favorite is your own.

Who makes the best vanilla ice cream?

This is an entirely different question. This requires an answer based on a set of criteria. Perhaps on some level there are subjective decisions to be made about which criteria are used and their relative weights. But there need to be defensible reasons for choosing what is The Best that go beyond mere personal preference.

In the case of vanilla ice cream these criteria could be: the presence of actual vanilla; the assertiveness of the vanilla flavor; the density of the ice cream; the use of high quality ingredients; the absence of stabilizers, emulsifiers, or gums; etc. 

Just because you like Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream the best doesn’t make it the best, it makes it your favorite. But at least Häagen-Dazs is a defensible position. Less defensible would be Edy’s. If you like Edy’s the best because it’s a lot less expensive than other options, you haven’t made your case. If you like Edy’s the best because you like the way those food gums linger on your tongue, you will also be unconvincing to anyone who knows something about quality ice cream.

Granted, you could argue The Best vanilla ice cream needs to satisfy a different set of criteria, and that indeed is subjective. But the selection of these criteria can be debated and argued, whereas personal preference cannot.

Much like –S I find the drive up to Saratoga Springs and the prices of Mrs. London’s baked goods a bit off-putting. This is why Crisan (and not Mrs. London’s) is my favorite bakery. It’s closer to home and its prices are closer to Earth. Crisan is very good. But the pastries are just a little bit better at Mrs. London’s, plus they have some very solid bread.

Crisan may be the Best Patisserie in Albany. It could even win the Best Place for a Sweet Treat, although it might face stiff competition from Cheesecake Machismo. But as much as I love the place, respect the skills of their bakers, and am thankful for their presence in Albany, I cannot say they are The Best. Even though the difference is inches and not yards.

The Best doesn’t have to be some unattainable Platonic ideal of perfection. It’s why I’m comfortable giving the nod to Caffé Vero for best coffee. The place isn’t perfect, but there is nobody making espresso drinks as good as these guys in the area. Nobody. And that’s not my opinion, it’s a matter of fact. You can read this to see just some of the things they do in the pursuit of good coffee.

But I refuse to believe there are a majority of Albanians who vote in the Times Union poll who think Subway is actually the Best Sandwich in the area. Granted, I think they may like it the best for a variety of reasons: it’s cheap, it’s close to their office, the line moves quickly. However, there is no doubt in my mind that if you took those same people and gave them a Subway sandwich and a similar one from Andy’s the vast majority would agree that Andy’s was best.

The Best things are special. Deciding on what is The Best requires some thought. The Best may even be different than your favorite. But there are consequences when the major daily newspaper publishes a list of things its readers consider The Best and Olive Garden is among them. I’m just trying to elevate this list to the level of its aspirations.

What makes it interesting is that the tasting is done blindly.

That is not to say we are blindfolded, because how a pizza looks is important too.  Rather each judge receives two slices of pizza at a time, each on a paper plate identified only with a letter.  Loyalties to pizza joints run high.  Especially in this town.  This scheme is designed to try and prevent any judge from playing favorites, or to let any preconceived notions enter the evaluation process.

Last year I laid out my Pizza Philosophy and wrote about what I look for in a slice of New York Style pizza.  Having gone through the tournament as a judge last year, and just finished a grueling first round where I consumed 16 different slices of pizza in short order, I thought I would share some of my deeper gleanings into the form.

There is one other critical component to pizza beyond the crust, the sauce and the cheese.  It’s heat.  That would be the heat from the oven, both its actual temperature and its source.  Pizza ovens are magnificent, be they gas, wood or coal, and are often underappreciated.  It’s the ovens that make this a special treat that can only rarely be duplicated at home by the most obsessive fans of the form.

Not that it can’t be done.  But the people who do it are a special kind of dedicated.

Since this is a blind tasting, the judges aren’t told which pie comes from what kind of an oven.  So we are left with visual and other sensory cues.  I look closely at the color of the cheese.  I’m prone to calling underdone cheese things like “too blonde” or “flabby” and I find it to be wholly unappealing.

The bottom crust is another key indicator of how a pie has been cooked.  I loathe to see the telltale crosshatches of pizza screens, which indicate the bottom crust has never been in direct contact with the oven floor.  Getting filthy with char or getting covered with toasted cornmeal is an infinitely better fate than eating a pizza that was designed for consistency over brilliance.  Generally, I like a bit of snap to my bottom crust, but in the torturous conditions of the Tournament of Pizza no pie can retain its crisp bottom, assuming it ever had one at all.

My judging process is now well-honed.

First I visually evaluate the slice.  I take in the browning of the cheese.  I look for bubbles.  I see how the sauce and its ratio to the cheese influence the overall color.  Are herbs visually present?  How oily is the slice?  And what does the end crust look like?  Then comes the critical point of examining the bottom crust, and checking for screen lines.

Then I take a bite of the end crust.  Just crust.  Before evaluating anything else, I want to see how the least-appreciated and most-important aspect of the pizza tastes.  Is it yeasty, more bread-like, or redolent of a cracker?  Is it tasty enough that I would enjoy eating the entire thing?

Next I take a bite of the tip, to get a sense of the overall slice, before moving on to the specifics.

The easiest and second-most-critical element to evaluate is the cheese.  What kills me about far too many pizzas is how little flavor comes from the cheese.  If I’m going to take the fat and calorie hit of eating a cheese-drenched food, dammit, that cheese better be working hard.  So I pull of little bites of cheese from the slice, and try to scrape as much sauce from as possible to really get a sense of its taste and texture.  The major flaws tend to be blandness, hardness and graininess.  There were a couple of standout cheeses in Round One.

Finally it comes down to the sauce.  And honestly the sauce is really difficult for me.  There generally isn’t that much on a slice.  But I try to scoop some up on a finger and see what it’s about on its own.  The thing is that I see sauce really like the supporting player.  It is the glue that holds everything together.  It enhances the crust and balances the cheese.

When all the components are accounted for, it’s time to reassess how they all work together.

Doing this for every slice in the competition is a lot of work, but I think all of the competing shops really deserve to have their product taken seriously.  And while my fellow judges surely have their own approach to coming to their conclusions, and while I cannot say I always agree with their evaluations, I can assure you all they take this very seriously too.

For the record, I thought the slice I had from Pasquale’s was totally inferior to my slice from Lou-Bea’s in Round One.  It seemed both pies were unevenly cooked.  But that’s the breaks.  When blindly eating pizza, I can only judge the slice in front of me.

Number one: Let’s not forget that Downtown Albany’s Restaurant Week is underway.  I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to get out any night this week, but I’m hoping it works out so I can try one of the more promising menus.

Number two: Yesterday’s post should have totally been titled Good Vermouth Hunting.  I apologize for the complete missed opportunity to reference Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.  Moving on.

Every independent restaurant and every small store starts as somebody’s dream.  Regardless of how misguided that dream may seem to every other person who comes across it.  Even regardless of whether that dream turns into a nightmare in short order.  Each of these ill conceived ventures was somebody’s hope at creating something special.

The ones that are doomed from the start are especially tragic.

Not that every small-scale venture is destined to wind up like this.  Some indeed do very well, and it’s those enduring businesses that drive others to attempt to duplicate their successes.

Why am I mentioning this now?  Well, I recently encountered two such places and it made me think about my approach to reviewing.

These places will not be named.

I take no delight in smashing people’s dreams.  That is completely different from taking places down a peg or two.  I hope that I’ve made it clear in the past that I am much harder on places that are trying to be something they are not.  The restaurant that offers dressed-up diner  food but that is putting it on beautiful plates, with fine table linens and is charging twice the price, will be held to a higher standard than a cheap and dingy tavern.

Primarily I like to point out that the emperor has no clothes.  That’s a lot more interesting than kicking a person when they are down.

All the same, I think it’s only fair to offer struggling businesses some constructive criticism, and a reasonable assessment of their performance.  I wouldn’t be doing a doomed business any favors if I told them everything was great, and I loved what they’ve done with the place.  In this regard it is no different than any under performing establishment.

No matter how bad something is, there is generally at least one bright spot.  Take the meal that I had at Athos a while back.  The grilled pita was amazing, as was at least one of the dips.

Just to be clear, I don’t think Athos is doomed, but just one of the many disappointing restaurants around here.  It just didn’t live up to the hype.  There are people who love this place, but to me it felt very overpriced for what the kitchen puts out.  

On the flip side, if I’ve been to a bad place, I want to save you the heartbreak and disappointment of a bad or even a mediocre meal.  The fact is that I just don’t trash places all that often.  Looking back at all my Yelp reviews, only about six percent of places received one star.  The vast plurality are at the four star level.  This is not because I’m generous with stars.  I’m not.  Nor is it because I only tend to write the more positive reviews; that too would be incorrect.  I attribute it to the simple fact that I try to go to places that are good.

Even places that are doomed to fail have some redeeming qualities.  I remember a “gourmet” chicken wing restaurant in Berkeley.  The problem was that it wasn’t gourmet.  It was global with an array of sauces inspired by different countries.  They had two things going for them.  They knew how to fry, and one or two of the sauces was truly quite excellent.

Still, it was never going to last, but I never had the heart to tell them.  They probably wouldn’t have believed me, even if I did.  That’s the curse of small business owners.  They believe wholeheartedly in what they are doing, and often don’t see any problems until it’s much too late.

That’s where I come in.

Because while taste may be subjective, one can evaluate foods based on a number of criteria.  The criteria themselves are limitless, and on some level subjective as well, but the more specific the criteria the less subjective the evaluation.  For hamburgers first and foremost I prioritize beefiness.  That’s different from flavor, because anything slathered with bacon, cheese, mayonnaise and barbecue sauce will have a ton of flavor.  A long time ago I was a big fan of the blue cheese bacon burger with mustard and onion.  That was a flavor monster, but honestly the patty it was served upon was completely unremarkable.

But I digress.  I bring this up today, even though it’s been on my mind for many months, because I want the people who submitted nominations for the best local cider donut to tell me more. Instead of getting a better understanding of which orchards have the best cider donuts in the region, I’m just getting a list of orchards that sell cider donuts.

Before I continue I just need to say that all your comments truly are appreciated, in whatever form they take.  This just struck a raw nerve today.  I’ll be okay tomorrow.  Promise.

This is what I asked for:

If you have any others, please let me know what they are and why you think their cider donuts are the best.  Is it the moistness, their deep cider flavor, the pungency of their spices, or maybe something about the crumb.  I am as interested in the reason you are nominating a donut as I am in the nomination itself.

The problem is just saying that you love Donut A tells me nothing.  If you tell me Donut A is the best, I have precious little information to evaluate that statement.

Someone could think Donut A is the bee’s knees because its the sweetest cider donut they’ve ever had.  Some people could prioritizing size or value.  Others could swear by a donut because of the oil in which it is fried.

The examples that I have now put in bold, for emphasis above, were just a few thought starters about potentially interesting criteria for evaluating a cider donut.

I can imagine someone preferring a specific orchard’s donuts because of how they smell cooking, or that the sugar is more securely attached, or that the donut making operation is on display.  These may not be directly related to the taste of the donut, but that doesn’t make them any less valid reasons for establishing a favorite.

Let’s get some details.  Why are the Altamont Orchard’s donuts “amazing”?  What is the reason that Goold’s donuts might be better on a certain day of the week?  And what day might that be?  All I know about Saratoga Apple now is their address.  Fo’Castle Farm makes Phairhead scream, but I don’t quite understand what all the yelling is about.  Hicks’ donuts are good when they are hot, but is that because of their interior, the crust, the sugar coating, the aroma, the deep satisfying belly warmth on a cool fall day, or what?  Lakeside is recommended in the same breath with Indian Ladder Farms, but I remain unclear about how they compare.

I’m relying on you people.  There are only so many donut places I can travel to in one day.  There are only so many donuts I can conceivably eat.  So I want to make this count, and try to narrow down the field to the four best donuts in terms of taste and texture.

But this rant has implications even beyond today.  Just look at the comments from a recent Table Hopping post.  Without any sense of people’s criteria, the comments just become a pile up of context free lists.  That is of no use to anybody, nor does it make for a very interesting conversation about food.  I know sometimes it’s hard to find the words, but please give it a shot.

If you need any specific guidance, look to Kater and Vicki whose very different comments really helped me to get a better understanding of their pick for best cider donut.

Thank you for putting up with this FLB.