Dining Desperation

I suppose it's a bad idea to ridicule a new Los Angeles dining concept—meals served in absolute darkness.

Although I have to say, if it catches on, restaurant owners are going to save a fortune on ambience.

A lawyer who came up with the idea is serving so-called gourmet meals in a pitch-black banquet hall. Here's the high concept: When you're on a blind date, why not go all the way?

The reason this gimmick is hard to ridicule is that it's apparently giving employment opportunities to blind waiters—not that I ever knew there were career opportunities for the blind in this line of work. I mean, aren't waiters your first line of defense against finding a fly in the soup?

One waiter, pleased with the opportunity, said, "This is something I could do with the skill level I had."

So I'm loathe to say it absolutely makes no sense. And considering how pointless most blind dates turn out to be, I suggest that participants in these dinners actually meet for the first time in the unlit room, across from each other at their darkened table.

This way they won't see each other until they've finished dinner and have quiche in their hair, béarnaise on their clothes, and a few extra pounds packed on. They'll know exactly what life will look like after they're married.

Why I'll Never Live in Northern California

Conversation with the guy taking orders at Taylor's Automatic Refresher, a burger joint in San Francisco's Ferry Building where the meat is automatically cooked medium-well (I guess that's what makes the place "automatic").

ME: "Why not serve them medium-rare?"

HIM: "Do you know what would happen if you served 100 burgers medium-rare?"

ME: "The customers would come back for more?"

HIM: "A hundred returns. People don't want their burgers all bloody."

Oddly, the restaurant serves its Ahi tuna rare. So this can't be a health issue—it has to be about locals believing undercooked fish is good for you and undercooked beef is not. Northern Californians seem to have issues with meat.

Or maybe it was just this guy. He had long sideburns, hair in a bun, goatee, and mustache. He not only sounded like Satan; he looked like Satan.

But I guess I always feel that way about people who don't care whether or not food tastes good.

Merlot—Beverage of Connoisseurs

Very little thrills me more than picking up the wine list in a restaurant and seeing something extraordinary at a price I can afford. I'll bet book collectors get the same buzz when they walk into a junk shop and find a first edition of Carrie offered for $8.99.

Recently, I came upon a magnum of 1992 Beringer Howell Mountain Merlot at The Earle, a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was priced at $155.

No, you can't rush over there and get your own, because this was the last magnum, although I can enthusiastically advise patronizing The Earle if you appreciate great California reds with age on them. The list is very good overall, but the selections of first-rate California reds are astonishingly priced.

(Want a French red instead? The 1996 Chave Hermitage is $135 there, $150-$175 in most wine stores.)

I was particularly thrilled about the Beringer Howell Mountain, because I believe it is the best merlot made in California, and I think it has been for more than a decade.

That 1992 had the advantage of being in the magnum format, which is the equivalent of two bottles and provides ideal aging conditions. The wine wasn't just smooth and supple, which seems to be the first priority of American merlot consumers, but it also boasted gorgeous, black-cherry-like fruit and the rarest of all California wine attributes, a lovely bouquet. (Ever notice how many California wines are deficient in that?)

I know Merlot is over. Everybody who used to drink it now wants Pinot Noir. And it is true that French Merlots, particularly those from the Pomerol appellation, tend to outperform California merlots.

But that used to be true of Pinot Noir, too, and now California Pinots Noirs are competitive with a great many red Burgundies. There's no reason why California Merlots, given the success of Beringer, can't do just as well.

Coffee, Tea, or Envy

At last, the airline industry has figured out a way to make the in-flight meal seem highly desirable. The secret: Let us see it, but don't let us have it.I was the victim on a recent six-hour American Airlines flight from New York to San Francisco. The 767 aircraft had a first-class section, a business-class section, and a coach section, and food for the swells in business class was being prepared in a galley located in the coach section. My coach seat, 20B, was right outside the tiny kitchen.

The menu for business-class passengers: Warm mixed nuts (smelled great), seasonal mixed greens (okay, even desperate travelers don't want airline lettuce), assorted "gourmet" breads (yeah, I'm sure that's what they were), grilled chicken breast sandwich with barbecue sauce (more good smells), and "freshly baked on board" chocolate-chip cookies (I really resented not getting those).

The menu for starving coach-class passengers: Nothing. Not a cracker, a pretzel stick, or a leftover crumb from the "gourmet" breads. No solid food for the likes of us.

When I asked one of the attendants for a cup of hot tea—that, indeed, is free—she told me to go to the coach-class galley in the back of the plane and get it myself. I now know the meaning of a soft job: Become a flight attendant in the coach section of an aircraft on a six-hour flight. (Tasting note: Tea has never tasted more metallic.)

I have to say, this represents a new low in customer courtesy for the airline industry. Or maybe that came when American Airlines began selling its crackers and cheese in coach.

Where's the Surgeon General's Warning?

I've been awaiting an opportunity to warn of the perils of pomegranate juice, the snake-oil of our day.

Finally, my chance came. Recently, the dining section of The New York Times led with an article written by Pete Wells, the editor of the section. He endorsed the use of pomegranate juice in cocktails. It's heartrending when a journalist of his high standing makes a tragic error in judgment.

He had invented a drink, a kind of Pernod-and-pomegranate-juice Cosmopolitan.

He waxed euphoric, saying, "Its lush dose of pomegranate makes the regular Cosmopolitan seem vapid…"

He also conceded that nobody in the world liked his concoction, but he blamed it on the association with the Cosmopolitan, which is fading in popularity.

He should have blamed it on the association with pomegranate juice, which tastes like liquid tobacco to me. It's not an acquired taste. It's a toxic taste. It's astounding that anybody drinks this stuff, although I assume it's because of the exaggerated health claims made by bottlers in the tradition of those Western salesmen who peddled miracle cures from the back of buckboards.

I warned Wells that I was about to mock his cocktail. He asked me if I was going to actually make his cocktail. When I said I couldn't bear to, he accused me of under-reporting, the kind of highbrow stance I would expect from a New York Times employee.

Then he sent me a notice of what appeared to be a pomegranate festival taking place in Brooklyn. I told him I would not be driving all the way to Brooklyn in order to drink badly.

He replied, "Don't say I'm not giving you plenty of opportunities to confront your pomegranate prejudices with actual knowledge."

I have to say that stung. Truth is truth, even when it comes from pomegranate proselytizers.

I decided to make his cocktail, and I'm glad I did. His recipe calls for POM Wonderful brand pomegranate juice, so off I went to my local A&P, which, I shudder to say, has an actual pomegranate juice section. There I made a wonderful discovery. The POM Wonderful people must be getting desperate, because I found pomegranate-cherry juice, pomegranate-blueberry juice, pomegranate-tangerine juice and a bunch of pomegranate teas, including pomegranate peach passion white tea, but no pure pomegranate. It tells me that nobody will drink the stuff unless it's mixed with something else.

I also looked on the POM Wonderful website, where the company pretty much maintains that drinking POM Wonderful will cure cancer, slow aging, and improve cardiovascular health, everything but end illiteracy.

I ended up buying a different brand of pomegranate juice, something called Frützzo, with a little umlaut over the "u." They probably hired the same marketing guy who invented Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

Well, I made the cocktail. In addition to pomegranate juice, it contains Pernod, vodka, Cointreau, and lime juice. The best part of it was that I could taste everything but the pomegranate juice. It wasn't terrible, and the dash of Pernod was rather inspired.

I'd give you the recipe, but it is my duty to halt the spread of pomegranate juice, with its absurd health claims. Some day it will be forgotten, but in the meantime, well-meaning people like me must make a stand before pomegranate juice obtains the cult status that bran muffins used to have.

Kids Gone Krazy

When I read that a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Milwaukee had become so violent that a city alderman wanted it closed down, I realized that this was a perfect opportunity to point out how safe New York City had become. Why live in the cruel Midwest when you can find a pleasant home in bucolic New York?

To prove the point, I decided to visit a Chuck E. Cheese's outlet located in the Bronx, about 10 miles from where I live. The borough has come a long way since it was memorialized in the film Fort Apache, the Bronx.

In comparison, the Chuck E. Cheese's branch on Chase Avenue in Milwaukee, according to reports, required a police response 18 times this past June and July, once for a fight involving 40 customers and 14 police officers. Not long afterward, restaurant security personnel reportedly began carrying guns. Perhaps the insanity is due to local children being raised on a diet that is 90 percent bratwurst.

I wanted to be absolutely fair, so we contacted the alderman, Tony Zielinski, who said he didn't necessarily want the outlet closed down. He only wanted its liquor license taken away. Imagine the uproar such a punitive action would cause, second-and third-graders denied their after-school beer and pizza.

I gathered together a scout team for my excursion to the Bronx. It included Vonnie, a neighbor, as well as Vonnie's daughter Camryn, 7, and another neighbor, Georgia, 5. Camryn, showing off, put on a lot of extremely glittery jewelry. I bet kids are afraid to do that in Milwaukee.

I asked Camryn and Georgia if they were armed. "No," they both said. I asked if they were going to insist on mixed drinks. "No," they both said. Off we went.

A confession: Before even arriving, I committed a number of illegal acts, all of them driving offenses brought about by the lousy directions given to me by the surly employee who answered the phone at Chuck E. Cheese's. By the time I got there, I felt prone to violence.

And, I have to say, I wasn't impressed with the exterior appearance of the place. The Bronx branch is a cement-block, fortress-like building topped with a cartoon symbol of a buck-toothed rodent, Chuck E. Cheese himself.

Inside, Vonnie and I ordered pizza. The kids went off to play arcade games. We trailed along. Within seconds, I was reeling. It was insane. Kids screaming, yelling, laughing, falling, begging, and rushing madly from game to game, inserting tokens and gathering up prize tickets that they could later exchange for meaningless loot.

At one point a member of our party became lost, disoriented, and almost started to cry. That was me.

Vonnie, self-styled neighborhood pizza expert, declared the pizza quite good, much like the pies she gets at the Pizza Hut outlet gracing our local Target store. Nobody in suburbia goes to pizzerias anymore. It's delivery, self-rising, or mall.

I thought the pizza wasn't pizza. It was tasty, salty, cheese-and-bread product. And I detected a pattern: Saltiness makes kids thirsty. Thirsty makes kids want soft drinks. Chuck E. Cheese's offers free refills of soft drinks. Kids drink and drink and drink, imbibing unlimited amounts of sugar, and then they go crazy. In seconds, they stick $20 worth of tokens in games they don't know how to play in order to win enough tickets to get a 50-cent prize. Chuck E. Cheese's is a kindergarten class taken over by the kids.

Smart people, those Chuck E. Cheese's executives.

I told Vonnie I had to go to our booth and sip some unlimited soft drinks and recover. She had no sympathy.

"This is nothing," said Vonnie, seasoned mother. "You've never been to a kid's birthday party, or even worse, gone to an amusement part with kids. It's hot, there are lines, you have to walk, and it's more expensive. This is not insane at all compared to the real life of a parent."

By the way, there were no guards, no guns, and only a few teenagers. I still think it was one of the most frightening places I'd ever been. I had come face-to-face with parenthood.

The Triple Threat

The check at a very pleasant but not particularly fancy new restaurant in Manhattan came to about $500 for four of us. About average. The wine portion of the meal was less than $100. About average. Service was agreeable but not especially attentive or graceful. Better than average. We were there a little more than two hours. About average.

I realized, with a shock, that I was probably supposed to leave a $100 tip. That's 20 percent, what many waiters in upscale restaurants expect these days.

A lot has been said recently about the prices of main courses surpassing $40, but I've seen nothing about the commensurate rise in tips that has gone along with that.

I think the days of tips being based on a percentage of food and wine costs has got to come to an end. It no longer makes sense.

I really don't think the efforts of the restaurant staff were worth $100.

I think I can anticipate the response to this: I'm going to hear that I'm cheap, I'm heartless, I don't understand what waiters do.

Say what you want, but I'm only going to be convinced if I can grasp what this staff did to expect $100.

I do understand that waiters get paid nothing of consequence—a few dollars an hour—and that they must depend on their tips. I know that in most restaurants they are obligated to make payouts: a percentage of the wine cost to the sommelier, a percentage of their total tips to the bartenders and to the most underpaid people in restaurants, those who bus tables. I know that few waiters get rich.

I know there's more to what they do than take orders and bring plates to the table. I figured they spent about 30 minutes doing that. If that's all there was, that $100 tip would mean I paid about $200 an hour for service.

Awhile ago, Thomas Keller instituted the French system at his famous New York restaurant Per Se. He established a flat-service charge that adds about 20 percent to the bill, actually a little more when you add in the additional sales tax, which is required with a service charge. He said he did it to equalize pay in his restaurant, where waiters were taking home far more than members of his underpaid kitchen staff.

That sounds high-minded, and I suspect Keller's intentions were good, but it doesn't make sense. Presumably, he could have distributed a portion of voluntary customer tips to his kitchen staff just as easily as a portion of his new, involuntary customer tips. If a waiter has to give a share of tips to sommeliers, bartenders, and busboys, why not a share to line cooks, too?

In addition, Keller did something I truly find objectionable. When I ate there not long ago, a line on my credit card receipt read: "Additional Gratuity." He wanted it both ways, involuntary and voluntary, and that's no good. I suspect any customer who doesn't leave an "additional gratuity" will feel like a cad. I left $50 extra on a lunch for two, and that was after enduring terrible wine service.

With the "additional gratuity" tossed in, I wouldn't be surprised if the total service charges at Per Se now average close to 30 percent.

I don't like the French system. Nor do I like Keller's modified French system. I like the American system, where you pay more for good service than for poor service, and where you make up your own mind.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how it should work—but I think the answer lies not in how much money customers spend on food and wine, but how long they occupy the table and how much attention they get. I'm not trying to save money. I'm trying to be sensible.

A Working Man

I watched in dismay as Marc Vetri, owner and chef of the restaurant Vetri, downloaded instructions on how to tie a bow tie. A gentleman who intends to dress in a tuxedo should have prior knowledge of the niceties, I thought, as I attached my clip-on.

Vetri's tie looked rakish, which is a kindly way to say crooked. I complimented him on how wonderful he looked. I believe that's what waiters are supposed to do.

He also wore patent-leather Michael Jordan basketball shoes. I did not praise those. That would have been going too far.

I had come to Vetri, the unparallelled Italian restaurant in Philadelphia, to work at a white-truffle-and-Sassicaia dinner, which was priced at $750 per person. I could have attended as a guest, but that's more than I like to spend on rent. When I volunteered to wait tables and, I hoped, eat leftovers, Vetri agreed. He got a no-cost waiter and I got a chance to work in a restaurant, which is often more insightful than eating in a restaurant.

Vetri's somewhat Lombarian and somewhat Piemontese restaurant, sprinkled with hints of haute, is practically flawless. That means the menu for the evening was, too. He didn't do any of the dumb things people often do with white truffles, such as shave them over roasted meats or grilled fish.

White truffles have an unrivaled bouquet that is sweet, pungent, and decadent, an expression of haute decay. When the truffles arrive atop cream sauces, eggy pastas, and mild melted cheeses, the experience is exhilarating. I was proud to see that Vetri served no vegetables with the meal, except for sautéed onions and porcini mushrooms. Healthiness has no role in a truffle dinner.

White truffles are also insanely expensive, about $160 an ounce this season, and most restaurants that put on gala dinners featuring them have trouble making a profit for that reason alone. Vetri made no money for another reason, because of the price of the 1985 Sassicaia. This enormously famous Tuscan red now retails for about $1,500 a bottle. He said, "We had a reasonable profit built in until we got to the '85. Now we're breaking even. Almost."

Perhaps that's why he never offered to pay me for my services. Or perhaps it was because he didn't believe they were worth anything.

I was quite proud of myself, to be honest. When it came time to serve the amuse bouche, three tiny items lined up on a long plate, I asked Vetri's partner, Jeff Benjamin, who runs the wine and service aspects of the restaurant, which of the three should be toward the left side of the customer and which to the right.

Thoughtful question, wouldn't you agree?

Benjamin replied, "We're not a French restaurant. We don't care about these things."

When Vetri asked his chef de cuisine a question about one of the items used as a garnish and didn't get an immediate, snap-to-attention response, he glanced my way with a shrug. "That's another reason we're not like a French restaurant," he said.

That was my first lesson on the inner workings of an Italian restaurant: They spend a lot of time practicing not being French.

When it was time for me to bring out the first course, an onion tortino with pancetta and white truffles, I picked the plate up beautifully, demonstrating exquisite balance and poise.

"You're getting thumbprints on the dish," Benjamin said. "No thumbs."

The second course was venison tartare with egg and truffles—much more delicate than it sounds. My thumbs were exquisitely tucked away. "Don't tilt the plate," Benjamin warned.

Still, I was doing fine until I realized I could not remember which of the guests was drinking sparking water and which preferred still. The other members of the staff seemed to have no such difficulty. Benjamin had a theory: "You're a writer. You can't remember anything unless you write it down."

Vetri chastised me only once, and, in all honesty, it wasn't fair. He warned me me that every glass I broke would cost me $50. I asked if it was reasonable for him to yell at me before I made a mistake.

"It's called a preemptive strike," he said.

I broke no glasses. My only error in the dining room was clanging an empty plate against an empty glass. It rang like a gong. Benjamin looked sad. "Not good," he said.

I believe I actually cheered up the gathering. The tiny restaurant was jam-packed and set-up family style, which meant somebody had to shimmy down impossibly narrow passageways balancing plates of food or glasses of wine. The guests seemed particularly happy to see the oldest, fattest guy in the room spin and twirl.

I didn't get to eat much. I did get to taste the wines. Here's my recommendation, if you're thinking of investing in collectable vintages of Sassicaia: Go for the 1988. The '85 has evolved into a brooding monster, but it's nearing the end of its life. The '88 still has plenty of that wonderful acidity that separates great Italian red wines from most others in the world.

I also want to thank a few of my fellow servers.

Maura, for occasionally wiping my brow with a clean cloth. (In case you were a guest, she did not use that same cloth to polish the silver between courses.)

Liz, for providing me with a fascinating insight into the habits of restaurant customers. I asked her whether it was easier to bring food to tables or to take empty plates away, and she replied, "The customers are more willing to help when you're giving them food than when you're taking away. When they're done, they're back into their conversations, and they don't notice that you're there."