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.
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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.

Instead I’m going to jump head first into the first of the Fussy Little Round-ups of 2011.

I write a lot of original posts. What’s interesting is that I never know which ones are going to capture people’s imaginations and which ones are going to fall flat. There are lots of reasons why some posts can underperform, and this is the last chance the laggards will get to see the light of day. Because after this, they’ll be sealed away in the catacombs with dear old Fortunato.

Although sometimes there are common themes and conclusions that can be drawn by looking at a year’s worth of posts. This year, there is one unavoidable conclusion.

Wine is a real non-starter.

That’s not entirely true. There were some wine posts that did reasonably well. The ones that outperformed the rest were the ones where I was holding local businesses feet to the fire. Also wine posts were better read when I compared juice to suds.

I understand why more people aren’t reading my wine posts. But I just thought Bacon Flambé and Gold Lamé was inspired. Maybe there aren’t enough fans of They Might Be Giants who are also fans of bacon being set on fire with booze and brown sugar. Anything is possible.

Still a full third of the 12 least read posts from the past year are about wine.

One was a Father’s Day note to my dad, which involved the remembrance of a delicious wine we shared at a very special dinner in San Francisco. Now whenever I see this bottle, I cannot help but to think of my father, and that great time we shared at a quiet table many years ago.

A second was a bit about wine preservation and what happens to wine as it is left open, or when a partial bottle is stored for another day. Perhaps there was just too much going on in the post. Perhaps nobody really cares about how bad most wine by the glass can be. As I mention in the post, the safest bet is always a glass of sparkling wine.

The third from back in February was when I wrote about finishing the case of wine we put down for ten years, and the desire to get another one. Now it’s almost February again. The very fact that I haven’t moved on this project myself, should be a clear indication that it’s not something that would be of interest to most people. Don’t let my lack of forward progress stop you. It’s still a good idea.

The fourth is about how wine festivals can be overwhelming. It’s fun to have the opportunity to taste lots of different wines in one place. But how can you make it a useful learning experience instead of just a frenzied bacchanal? Well, I had some ideas. Not that I didn’t require a driver to take me home from the festival, because I did. I’m nothing if not safe and responsible. It’s times like these that I wish I could drink wine without any of its intoxicating effects.

Nobody is looking at blogs on Thanksgiving. I hesitate to even include this post in the dirty dozen because it’s not entirely original content. But it is a Thanksgiving tradition on the FLB which will not stop just because it doesn’t get a lot of eyeballs. But could you imagine if the OWS folks could use the charm and wit of this amazing protest singer from the 1960s?

Two posts were about my thoughts on specific pieces of produce.

One was peaches. Specifically local peaches that aren’t grown using organic protocols. Did you know that conventionally grown peaches carry one of the heaviest pesticide loads of any crop in the grocery store. It’s a scary list of chemicals. But all the same, for the first time in a long time, I found myself buying and enjoying non-organic peaches last summer. Here’s the full story.

The other was tomatoes. Just last night I avoided a BLT because there is no way I’m going to eat a tomato in December. Blech. But there are some good ways to make the tomatoes of fall enjoyable. And back in late September I did just that. It’s a long time until July rolls around. But the new crop of fresh, ripe tomatoes will hopefully be glorious. Until then, there should be no caprese salads unless you happen to find yourself somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

It wasn’t surprising that you all weren’t more enthusiastic to learn about the free tickets I got to attend a local food and wine festival. I’m sure that would have been different if I had bonus tickets to give away. But I try not to look my gift horses in their proverbial mouths. I hope you understand.

I also wasn’t too surprised that more people weren’t interested in watching live streaming video of baristas making espresso. Admittedly I’m a bit of a geek about these things, and I find this to be highly compelling viewing. Much more so than golf. Maybe one day the world’s best barista will get Tiger Woods sized sponsorship deals. Dare to dream.

But I am perplexed as to why these final two spirits posts didn’t do better.

One was about the benefits of shopping in a liquor store that doesn’t sell crap. No seriously, even their bottom shelf stuff was solid and completely unimpeachable. The upside is that if there is a mid-priced bottle on the shelf that you are unsure about, you can trust that it will be good.

The other was all about muddling. Maybe the post itself was a bit muddled. Perhaps it was too wide ranging a topic to try and squeeze into one post. I’m not really sure. But a lot of popular cocktails these days call for muddling, and everyone should know how to do it. Although in truth, I find it’s too much hassle and generally go for cocktails with less labor.

So, lesson learned. I’ll go into 2012 appropriately humbled, and will try to do better next year. I’ll try to have less of the bad and more of the good. What was good? Well, we’ll get to that shortly.

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.

I take full responsibility for the confusion. We’ll get it all cleared up in a moment. But first, let’s go back and recall what Mr. Dave wrote:

I think you are putting some of your best content onto All over Albany, which is great. But I think you are going to get more people to read AoA as opposed to this blog. Is this out of a sense of Altruism?

First, I’m flattered. Second, no. It would be nice in the spirit of the holidays to think that I was doing something purely out of the goodness of my own heart. But my motives are entirely selfish, and I’m happy to lay them out.

Would you believe, I do it for the money?

Before we get into the specifics, I need to make sure everyone is clear on the ten thousand foot view. Because I write on a few platforms, and each one has its purpose.

Yelp is where I started seriously writing about Albany food and I’ll always consider myself a Yelper. Yes, it has its drawbacks, but I love how it aggregates reviews, so unlike the Chow boards there is no bickering back and forth, and users can easily synthesize the ratings to get actionable information.

Sadly my Yelp activity has taken a backseat to the FLB and AOA. But it’s always on my mind, and I continually beat myself up for not posting there more. I do consider all the reviews I’ve written on the site to be my official stance on those restaurants and businesses.

The FLB was born when I wanted to write about restaurants beyond the confines of a Yelp review. How can you review a restaurant you won’t set food in because their menu looks so awful? You can’t. But you can blog about it. So I do.

Here’s what may be the missing link.

I endeavor to make everything I write on the FLB relevant to people living beyond the Capital Region. This doesn’t always succeed. Most of the stories are rooted in the area, but the implications generally apply more broadly.

Bullshit, you say? Well, let’s quickly review to see how I’ve done over the past several posts:

More Tasty Vittles from Rolf’s – Would heirloom bacon win in a blind tasting?
Eating Seasonally: Entering Winter – Cold weather cooking ideas.
Prime Potatoes – Reiterates the importance of local farms being on the menu.
Scones – What makes them bad and what makes them worth the calories.
Food Gifts – Some ideas about what to get the food lover for Christmas.
Good Food Need Not Be Expensive – And vice versa: Better alternatives to Arby’s.
Employee Education – Maybe it’s a bad idea to let your staff talk to customers.
Coffee Gifts – Do not get a K-Cup machine for anyone who loves coffee.

The tours are the only things that come to mind that have little resonance beyond the area. And I would hope even those might get readers elsewhere to consider their regional culinary specialties, and possibly inspire a tour of their own.

All Over Albany opens up a lot of possibilities for me.

In some ways it’s like a Yelp review on happy pills for only the best things in the region. And that has an appeal. It’s great to have a chance to write something nice that restaurant owners will want to print up and hang on the wall, like the piece I did on Peter Pause’s eggplant sandwich.

AOA also isn’t a food blog. It’s a general interest local website. And as a result it is not populated by likeminded food lovers. While you and I may not agree on every matter of taste, if you are here reading this, it’s likely that food plays a more central role in your life than that of the average citizen. Not that AOA is read by the average citizen. Their readers are smarter, better looking, and tend to wear glasses.

The benefit of writing food stuff for this audience is that I have a better chance of not preaching to the choir. And that is inherently appealing.

Now, it’s not surprising that Mr. Dave prefers my AOA posts. They are written in the very positive tone of the site, generally feature small local businesses, and on the whole are a booster for the region. They also all have pretty pictures.

It’s also not surprising that they are actually better too.

My pieces for AOA are reviewed and copyedited by an actual professional journalist. And he’s tough. Nice, but tough. And I want to do well by him. Not just because he pays me. But because he’s tough, and any praise I get from him is really significant. So I give those posts a little bit more attention than my daily diatribes on the FLB. Plus working with a professional pushes me to get better and better. Hopefully, some of those improvements spill into my writing here.

And AOA is just great. The site was a ray of light to me when I was a new arrival in this strange land. I’m thrilled to be a contributor, and I’m glad my work is well received.

Now I just need to find time to catch up on my Yelp reviews.

I have been very lucky in that I’ve been able to eat some stunning meals in some amazing restaurants. A few highlights include places overseen by Thomas Keller, Michael Mina, Wolfgang Puck and David Bouley. There are countless others in the country and around the world that I would like to visit, but like most everyone else I’m constrained by time and money.

But never have I had a perfect meal.

Even among the highest of high end restaurants, something is always a bit off. Maybe the entrée wasn’t quite as exciting as the appetizer or dessert. Or the dessert menu didn’t quite measure up to the refinement of the rest of the meal. It could be as simple as a clunky wine glass. More complicated problems involve the unique interplay of personalities and the relationship between waiter and diner. Once upstairs at Chez Panisse the waitress killed a small spider on our table… and left it there.

As it turns out, a perfect meal is never the point.

For that matter, neither is the perfect dish. Although over the years I have indeed encountered a good many of these. Plates where every element comes together, it is a feast for all the senses, and not a single thing could be improved upon or changed in any way. Yes, they are rare. But they do exist.

Most of the time, there is always something that could be at least a little bit better. A detail that’s been overlooked or an element on the plate that just doesn’t work as well. These lapses are not lost on me.

If I were looking for the perfect meal, I would probably have stopped dining out years ago. The frustration would be just too great to bear. But I’m not. I’m looking for a memorable meal. I’m looking to taste a chef’s skill. I want to experience their vision of what good food should be. I want to eat things that I cannot prepare in my home kitchen made from ingredients that are reserved for chefs and restaurants.

Chefs are human. They make mistakes.
On some level, taste is subjective.

The weak link on one visit to Chez Panisse was the lamb chop. Inevitably it was the best quality lamb chop one could find that week in Northern California, given that farmers have been known to hand deliver the best animal from their herds to Alice directly. I have no doubt about this at all. I’m glad I was able to try it. But the kitchen’s simple preparation to honor the glory of the lamb just left me flat. It was an amazing meal, and one that I think fully and accurately gave me a sense of what the restaurant was about. It wasn’t perfect, and there was certainly room for improvement. But I think fondly of the experience, and recall with delight the highlights from that dinner.

Many of my favorite meals have been far from perfect. Now it may just be a game of semantics, but I see a clear divide between favorite and best.

Maybe someday in my life I will stumble upon the perfect meal when I least expect it. If it happens it happens, but things like this can’t be forced. Chasing a perfect dining experience will only lead to unhappiness and disappointment.

Until then, I’ll continue to enjoy some interesting dining experiences, while I fastidiously note all the things that could make them better.

This is just one emergency.

The other involves our major local food blog, Table Hopping, written by the Albany Times Union’s Steve Barnes. Well, the Table Hopping blog is celebrating its fifth anniversary soon, and there is a cocktail contest. Readers submitted recipes, and four drinks are vying for the top spot.

However, the only bona fide cocktail is loosing. Well, it’s a distant second. But the voting doesn’t close until 5 p.m. on Thursday. The top two contenders will be able to slug it out in a taste-off. Still, there is a chance a lesser cocktail will move into the second place position, in the next 30 hours or so. And that is a chance I’m unwilling to take.

So I’m asking for your help. I don’t ask for much, and I don’t ask often. This should take less than a minute. All you have to do is click here and write a comment that says, “#1 Empire State of Mind.”

But I’ve found my readers really need to be convinced. So let me explain why this is important.

You may want to go back and look at the list of cocktails that are being voted on in this contest. Now remember these are the readers of the region’s top food blog. These are our foodies. These are the people who read a food columnist every day.

The cocktail that is in the lead, with a whopping 77 votes, is a self-appointed Appletini.

These are its ingredients:
1 ounce ginger infused/flavored vodka
2 ounces fresh mulled apple cider
1/2 ounce Cointreau orange liqueur
Splash of ginger ale
Cinnamon sugar for rim
Empire apple slice for garnish

There are some things that this drink does right. Ginger and apple are a great combination. Apples out here are really at the height of their season and the Empire’s in particular are excellent right now.

But there is where the good news stops. My strong opinions about cocktails is that they need to find some kind of balance. And this drink is crying out for acid to bring the sweetness into check. It’s mostly cider, with Cointreau, ginger ale, and a sugar rim. It’s sugar on top of sugar on top of sugar. There is a token amount of vodka. But I’m also nervous about a “ginger flavored” vodka since not all flavored booze is created equal. In fact most of it’s made in a lab and is quite awful.

The drink I’m endorsing is the Empire State of Mind.

Yes, it has enough fans to currently be in second place, but with only 27 votes, it does not have a very safe margin over the third place contender. And this is primarily why I need your help. For this drink to win in the end, it will need to taste better than its more popular sugary rival. But it may not get a chance without your support.

These are its ingredients:
.25 ounce Dark Amber Maple Syrup from Mountain Winds Farm (Albany County)
1.5 ounce Cornelius AppleJack from Harvest Spirits at Golden Harvest Farms (Rensellear County) (I used Bottle #95, Batch #2)
.5 ounce Baby Bourbon from Hudson Whisky from Tuthiltontown Spirits (Ulster County) (I used Bottle #785, Batch#17 from this year)
3 drops Old Fashion Aromatic Bitters from Fee Brothers (Monroe County)
3 drops West India Orange Bitters from Fee Brothers (Monroe County)
3 dried whole Jamaica allspice berries
1 stick cassia bark (often mistaken for and labeled as cinnamon)

It’s whiskey and maple, and you know I have a soft spot for that. But it’s not just about me. This is billed at being a riff of a Manhattan, although in all honesty it feels more like a take on the Old Fashioned. But dammit, this is actually a cocktail. It’s loaded with booze, with a few additional components to temper the spirit and season the drink.

This is a cocktail. And frankly it’s the only one in the running.

So again, I ask you this one favor. If you have yet to vote in this competition, regardless of where you may live, please click here and type in the comments, “#1 – Empire State of Mind.”

Thank you.

It’s a local classic.

I’m pretty sure that there is nothing I can ever say that will change the fortunes of Jack’s. Unless they start trying to sell Hormel corned beef hash from a can, Jack’s will continue to be the place where important people in the capital of New York State to do business, press the flesh, and grease the wheels of progress.

While it may look like things don’t change at Jack’s, they do. Just recently chef Larry Schepici came aboard to run the place, and put his twist on this institution’s venerable menu. Earlier this week, I was invited to a food writers’ luncheon to sample a few of the new dishes. Capitol to Capital was there too, taking pictures, as were Steve Barnes and Bill Dowd.

So what did I think?

I was really curious to see what a creative chef like Larry Schepici who has had free rein over a few of the regions top restaurants would do within the confines of this very traditional old-school seafood and steakhouse format.

If you went in for lunch, you might not even notice the difference. Fried calamari ($11.99) has been added as a starter from the seafood bar and an arugula salad ($12.99) replaces the “Hudson Farmer Quinoa Salad” ($11.99) from the previous menu. The former turkey sandwich ($9.99) has been upgraded to a turkey club ($11.99), but at the same time a cup of soup and half sandwich ($9.99) option has been added.

Two other additions are the “Chicken Pomodoro” ($13.99) and the Boston scrod, which can either be broiled or battered and fried ($14.99).

A careful examination of the menu reveals a few other minor changes. Celery was removed from the Niçoise salad, Roquefort was replaced with blue cheese in the Cobb salad, the grilled chicken wrap no longer contains sautéed mushrooms, and sweet potato fries were removed in favor of classic French fries.

Gone is the “Jumbo Lump Crabmeat Martini” with Cajun remoulade ($14.99) and that makes me happy. You know how I feel about martinis.

Of these dishes we only got to sample the calamari and the arugula salad. Calamari? I asked Chef Larry if he knew that Ruth Fantasia was no longer writing restaurant reviews. And after a few chuckles, he said that it was still a very popular dish.

It may be popular, but it wouldn’t be my pick.

This was my first visit to Jack’s. But I really think that lunch is the way to go. Their dinner prices are astronomical. Yes, dinner comes with an organic salad, seasonal fresh vegetable, chef’s starch and bread. However dinner tacks $11 onto the price of the scrod and the chicken pomodoro lunch entrées.

For lunch you could get an order of Jack’s famous 1913 recipe Manhattan clam chowder AND their signature calves liver with onion and bacon for about 10% less than the price of the least expensive dinner entrée. When winter rolls around, I’m hoping to get back in here and let my inner old man out for a warming and restorative meal. I think a better test of this restaurant is not an evaluation of their menu additions especially prepared for food writers, but rather how they prepare the dishes the kitchen has been churning out for almost a hundred years.

Most of what we sampled was from the new dinner menu, which kept twelve of the twenty-one entrées untouched from its earlier iteration. Chef Larry added eight new dishes, and tweaked “Jack’s Classic Steak Diane” to make it classic again (removing the mustard and mushrooms).

Between the “Pan Bronzed Sea Scallops” that were fennel dusted and served in an orange pink peppercorn Champagne sauce ($27.99) and the “Seafood Risotto Venezia” with shrimp and scallops atop a risotto made with a lobster tarragon stock ($32.99), I thought the scallops was the better of the two dishes. Part of this is that I have a very high bar for risotto, and I’m not entirely sure any American restaurant can pull off this dish to my satisfaction

Between the “Grilled Lamb Steak”, which was cooked a bit too long and served sliced on a surprisingly peppery lamb cabernet sauce ($35.99), and the “Pork Osso Buco”, which was coated in a rich red wine pork glacé ($25.99), the pork was the clear winner.

As much as I enjoyed the fennel-dusted scallop, I do not expect to return to Jack’s for dinner. The prices at the restaurant haven’t increased with the new menu, they have stayed the same. It’s just a very expensive restaurant. And it’s good, but not that good.

But for lunch, I’ll be back.

They are doing good things at Jack’s. Sometimes they use produce from local farms, although I was sad to learn that Chef Larry doesn’t put this information on the menu. The restaurant has walked away from Chilean Sea Bass, which is fantastic. It also warmed my heart to see the words, “First cold press” on the menu when referring to their olive oil.

Sure, I could pick nits for another 1,000 words about the food, menu, service and tableware. However at the end of the day, Jack’s is Jack’s. Like Steve Barnes and Bill Dowd, it is inextricably part of the food culture of this city. Personally, I think the “new” menu is an incremental improvement over the last one, although I could do without the calamari. And while I may not think the “Pork Osso Buco” is worth the $25.99 charged for the dish at dinner time, it’s still one of the least expensive dishes on the dinner menu.

Albany is an old city, and it’s one that respects its past and traditions. If you want a peek back in time, Jack’s is the place to go. If money is no object to you, then perhaps you’ll go for dinner and try the scallops. Thankfully, lunch is a much more reasonable way for the rest of us to get the classic Jack’s experience.

But a limited menu with a fixed price should produce results that are actually just the opposite of these two commenters’ experience.

If you will indulge me with a few minutes of your time, I’ll explain.

One of the big questions I had upon arriving in Albany was, “Why is restaurant food so expensive here, when few restaurants are using ingredients or preparations that justify the price?”

Obviously there are a lot of factors that go into pricing decisions. But I’ve found one of the major factors is the nature of local menus. Most of them are very long, and most of them are effectively written in stone. A small handful of restaurants here change out there menus quarterly. But that’s a far cry from the single-page weekly or daily menus that were the norm out west.

A large menu means that a kitchen needs to keep on hand all the ingredients that go into every dish. And with that comes waste. Waste costs money. The math is simple: increased restaurant costs ultimately add to the price of food.

An annual menu means that even as the price of a certain ingredient rises when it’s out of season, the kitchen must still purchase it, sometimes in significant quantity. This tacks on additional costs to the operation, and that too impacts the price of food for the customer.

Now, say a restaurant is going to abandon its multi-page menu for a full week, offering only three appetizers, three entrees and three desserts. First, they should have significantly less waste with the pared down menu. Second, they should also be able to take advantage of less expensive—but still high quality—seasonal ingredients.

A brigade that used to bang out sixty different preps now only has to focus on nine.

With fewer items on the menu, the cooks should be able to become masters of the dishes they are putting out that week. Seriously, even after a few days, execution should approach perfection every single time.

This is how Restaurant Week is supposed to work.

But I do not doubt the experiences of either Mr. Dave or Josh K., as I can also certainly see the dark side of Restaurant Week. It could be a time when restaurants are goaded into participating in an event for which they have little interest. After all, are the people who come out for a $20 three-course meal going to return when the factory-farmed pork chop alone costs more than that?

And these are the places that just don’t care.

Looking at the menus I got the feeling that Jack’s Oyster House fell squarely within that group, which is a shame. But I would hope that places like taste and Kelsey’s are hungrier for new business than the oldest restaurant in Albany, which would probably continue to thrive if it started serving microwave TV dinners to New York state lobbyists.

But these restaurants are wrong. People will return; maybe not all the people, but some of them. However, people will only be coming back if they are wowed. And as I’ve outlined above, a limited, seasonal prix fixe menu should set every restaurant up for successes in this regard. Events like Restaurant Week can help cement a restaurant’s reputation as a great kitchen, or cause people to shrug and suggest that they don’t see what all the fuss is about.

Regardless, I think we can all agree that Albany’s Restaurant Week is broken. But it’s not the fault of Restaurant Week as a concept. Once again, many of our better restaurants fail in execution.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t keep on trying. Maybe I’ll be able to make it to taste. I’ve never been. If it’s great, I’ll surely return. But if they can’t manage to perform well on Restaurant Week, when the deck is stacked in their favor, forget about it.

On a separate note, I have to say that not all wedding food is bad. Capriccio had the right idea of roasting pigs in its oven for their porchetta. It’s something that can be made in a large quantity, holds well, and serves many guests. In that regard, barbecue makes for some of the best wedding food ever. Sadly, many brides kill that idea right out of the gate with some ridiculous argument about sauce and dry cleaning.