As scary headlines proliferate about the connection between cancer and practically everything you eat, Jeff Stier of the mythbusting American Council for Science and Health quotes a study that accuses anti-smoking zealots of the kind of misleading hyperbole that could further damage public health's credibility.....
SMOKE & MIRRORS
BUTTS, LIES AND PUBLIC HEALTH
NY Post

Money quotes...

" For decades, the industry-funded Tobacco Institute denied the harmful consequences of smoking and did a "great disservice to public health. Today, however, it's anti-smoking advocates spreading the disinformation - overstating certain risks. But - because such deception undermines the credibility of all public-health work - they're being called on it by one of their own."

""A startling study by Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University's School of Public Health is pointing the finger at the well-intentioned likes of Action on Smoking and Health, the politically powerful Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and New York City's Department of Health."

"In a study published this week in the journal Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations, Siegel warns that these groups are wildly inflating the health risks of exposure to second-hand smoke. In doing so, they tarnish the very credibility that the public-health community must have in order to save lives."


"But the evidence does not support the claim that more than 100 groups are wantonly making - which is that acute, transient exposure to ETS increases heart-attack risk in healthy individuals."

"The lack of evidence hasn't stopped Commissioner Thomas Frieden at the city Health Department, which is buying ads in The New York Times claiming that "just 30 minutes of exposure to second-hand smoke produces some of the same physical reactions that would occur from long-term smoking, and increases the risk of heart disease in non-smokers."

"The "evidence" behind that assertion is so flimsy that it would be laughed at if it supported the finding that smoking is less dangerous than we once thought. The clear implication is that some anti-smoking activists have adopted an "ends justifies the means" approach in pursuit of their noble cause."

This is what makes Siegel's report so troubling. No longer can we rely on the public-health establishment for scientifically accurate information. They'll fudge the numbers if they have to, so long as it promotes their overall agenda - in this case, the drive to outlaw smoking in all public places."


"Science eventually catches up with those who hyperbolize about risks, and the public learns to disregard them. "

I'm already disregarding all hyped reports on the connection between food and cancer...

I was getting moderate enjoyment from Claire Messud's novel The Emperor's Children when on page 23 I read the following...

"I'll whip up a sabayon...."

It's a lot of egg, Jules."

"We're not that old yet," said Julius. "We can count cholesterol next year."

It has been clearly established in a major study by the Harvard SChool of Public Health that the cholesterol in eggs is not transferred to the eater. That's not the way cholesterol works.

Ok so a novelist isn't a scientist, still, I found myself immoderately annoyed by her ignorance particularly as she is so persnickety about details like purple being called aubergine. But there, once again, aubergines are not always purple, they may be white as well.

Does the National Post's scenemaker Shinan Govani have the loudest voice in Toronto? Not quite but he has one of the loudest, most infectious laughs, and the other night, Shinan acknowledged that before he joined the Post and people were begging him on bended knees to come to their restaurants, he was actually asked to leave two restaurants for being too NOISY.

1)Place was packed (the reviews I guess), standing room only at the bar. The
noise was so excruciating that as a foursome we could only speak to the
person beside us as across the table was inaudible.

2)Neighbourhood restaurant and guess who the young yuppie parents bring but
their 6 0r 7 year old kids who were loud, obnoxious and uncontrolled by
their parents. We though we were in the middle of a day care.

3)Service was so understaffed/incompetent we poured our own wine after the
initial pour, had to repeatedly have to ask for bread and water and after
our first wine bottle was finished we asked for the wine menu to order a
second bottle and the menu never arrived.

4)The food- who cares?

Driving back home we all agreed, wouldn't if have been much more fun staying
at home, cracking open a nice bottle of Dom around a fireplace with some
appetizers and a nice simple meal around our dining room table.

My husband and I no longer dine out on Thurs, Fri or Sat, in fact our favourite night out is Sunday - that's right, the kiddies and their Dilbert parents are all packing up their lunches, doing homework, etc etc, the traffic is light, parking is ample and the restaurant of your choice still has a decidedly weekend feel, the food is still fresh and guess what??? they're genuinely glad to see you - wow that really makes a difference in your dining experience - service is fantastic. In addition to Sundays our favourite night to "howl" is Hallowe'en - not a child in sight - ENJOY. I do blame McDonald's for teaching children that a restaurant doubles as a playground and the spineless, leaderless, grovelling, in a popularity contest parents don't rein them in. Our parents took us out for dinner specifically to teach us how to behave in a public eatery, choose properly from a menu, etc certainly not to run riot and perhaps bowl some elderly person over, or bash into a waiter and get a scalding cup of coffee or soup down our necks ....... food for thought.

It's the decor: too many restaurateurs are putting decor ahead of customer comfort and upstaging their own chefs as a result. That shiny, sleek industrial look is the enemy of quiet. Designers obviously don't care. the new restaurant ONE is being repeatedly mentioned as noise - plus....why weren't the cattlehide walls padded, surely that would have been simple to do?

When you go to a restaurant, note the age of the server. If they're under thirty, leave immediately unless you want to be treated as if you don't exist. The twentysomethings are the ultimate ME gen. They come first, the job second, the job is something you do between lip piercings. And if the restaurant owner doesn't turn the music up and better still let the Mes pick the muzak, the Mes take a hike.

Ever tried to ask one of the Mes to turn the music down? They turn on you the blasted eyes of the Children of the Damned and I swear they turn the sound up!

Re: It's the Servers who are the problem....L.P.T.
by David Ouellet (commenter only) on Sun 28 Oct 2007 03:05 PM EDT


Yes this is true about non-professional wait staff. They are not professional. When I go out to an expensive place I want the waiter to know what sweetbreads, coquille St Jacques and tornedos Rossini are all about and know the difference between Chateauneuf and Chateaugai.

I have no idea why a world class city like Toronto doesn't have a waiter school like they do in Montreal. This is a career and nothing less. Sadly, not only is the food better in Montreal and Vancouver but alas, so is the service.

In my review of Gallery Grill, I incorrectly called Anne Martin, who served our table, the restaurant's sommelier. Martin is a indeed a sommelier and a writer who, starting February 8, 2008, will write a wine column for Canadian Living, but she says, "The general manager, Jerry Horton, does the wine buying and put together the great list."

This was a week of errors I'm afraid. In the printed review I incorrectly added a The before Gallery Grill and wrote it offered a Saturday brunch, when in fact they only do brunch on Sunday.

But I made no mistake about rating the quality of this excellent restaurant and its chef Suzanne Baby.

Gallery Grill has the gravitas of Gothic Revival, vaulted ceiling, high pointed windows and the coziness of WNED’s Mystery series. Many of the people seated in this longboat-shaped resto which overlooks Hart House’s great hall appear to have been culled from English common rooms and countryside --middleclass idiosyncrasy slipping into eccentricity. Jane Austen claimed that England was made secure by its scale and intimacy “where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies and where roads and newspapers lay everything open.” Oh Jane, if only you knew. This same network is the enabler of shameless mayhem and murder, villagers coming second only to the countryside’s top serial killer, the domestic cat.

I sip my white wine as I scan my neighbours… the woman with the gilt cap of hair is sitting in the window jonesing for a ciggy as she waits for her duplicitous husband. The tee-shirted young man with a halo of curls is the illegitimate son of the tonsured monk beside him… the middleaged couple sharing a carafe of red can only be trysting illicitly. The professor lunching along with fingers steepling over a book is brushing up on poisons.

And eating so well. Since Suzanne Baby took over the kitchen 12 years ago, Gallery Grill has become one of the city’s signature restaurants, a place that defines the kind of food that Toronto is getting a name for -- decorously terrific. The menu is simple, food is locally sourced without anyone making a fuss about it and Baby cooks with such flair and imagination and as well, so personally.    more »

It's true -- restaurants generally seem to be getting noisier. Today I had lunch at Tutti Matti on Adelaide St. W., where I eat often, and for some reason the music level had been cranked up. Why? Who knows? The result is that everyone talks louder to compensate.

Thuet's place on King Street West is another restaurant where the sound level is often disquieting.

But for sheer, unabashed, out-and-out human noise (caused solely by voices, as opposed to music-plus-voices, I'd have to nominate Amaya, the relatively new (and very good) Indian restaurant on Bayview Ave., in the site of the former JOV. Yikes!

Amanda Ursell, writing in today's Times of London, takes aim at well intentioned celebrity chefs' prescription for children's lunch boxes...

"This brings me back to celebrity chefs. I read a piece by an anonymous chef advising mothers to stop giving children sweets in their lunch boxes and instead pop in a packet of banana chips. These are slices of dried banana deep-fried in oil. A 100g packet contains 511 calories and 31g of fat.

You could give your offspring a real banana (virtually no fat and certainly no added sugars), a yoghurt (full of calcium and some protein) plus a two-bar KitKat (115 calories, 6g of fat) and they would still be 209 calories and an awful lot of extra nutrients better off.

NOISE!!! NOISE!!! NOISE!!!!
No, I am not talking about the clatter of plates and dishes, nor the echo of the yuppie chattering classes as they gossip about the latest or try to ascertain the ingredients in the ravioli filled with the latest molecular foam of identical twin ostrich feathers.

I am referring to the loud, thumping music that reverberates off the slick, hard, sophisticated surfaces in the trendy high-end restaurants like Colborne Lane, or that inevitably disrupt dinner and conversation in restaurants like Marben. The Noise is intolerable and conversation screeches to a complete halt.

The problem is two-fold – the music is cranked way, way up - and the sound echo’s off all those slick, hard surfaces. The "Designers" of these types of restaurants should be required to conduct a business meeting of their own, on-site with the music balring, to understand what they foist off on an unsuspecting public. Perhaps then there would be a little more attention paid to acoustical detail, and not just pretty finishes! Of course the restaurateurs should also be required to do the same. Maybe then the music will be slightly tamed until AFTER dinner......

This raw milk cheese that virtually crawls out of its wrapper is strong, gooey and should be eaten with a spoon. I found it at Pusateri's, Bay and Yorkville. For anyone who loves soft goat cheeses....

Thanks to everyone who mailed or called or even stopped me in the street with a comment about noise in restaurants.

I'm going to save all comments posted in the comments after the review from now on...

I am going to start taking a noisemeter into restaurants because most respondents seem to be in favour of that

I'm only sorry that complainers tended to be 40 plus, but on the other hand, that's only to be expected. Dining out is high end, the average bill for two with wine is $200. I give only the price of food plus the tax at the end of my reviews and i'm always surprised how much wine adds to the bill.

The bad news is that the City is likely to further increase the price of wine by 5% . This is not a restaurant-friendly city administration or a provincial administration. Philistinia still reigns in Ontario.

Other comments that I'll have to get around to addressing.

Kids in restaurants. A real annoyance if you're dropping a couple of hundred dollars on the evening.

Front of House manners. Why is the diner so often given only a couple of times they may reserve? I call for a 7:30 reservation and am told I can only book for 7 or 8.30 pm. I arrive at 7 and see tables empty at 7.30 and sometimes still empty at 8.30. Of course I understand that restaurants want to stagger meals to help the kitchen, but I think this is overdoing it.

Pastis Express is such an attractive bistro, good food and wine, pleasant surroundings, comfortable seats – but oh, the noise. We’ve come for a cozy evening but we can’t hear each other speak. The friend opposite me is moving his lips but I can’t hear a word. In a lull he calls one of our party Elizabeth. She mouths her name is Linda. He’s so sorry Belinda. You can imagine how more complicated concepts end up. Iraq? Is that the Great Karnak? We’ve become verbal Mr. McGoos. Finally, two of us go outside to chat.

Ok, it’s Friday night at a popular Rosedale neighbourhood place and the folks are having a good time. The lads are shouting at the bar and there’s a baby joining in, we almost fell over the plastic baby carriage by the door – what, can’t Rosedale afford babysitters? We seem to be the only people having hearing problems - but perhaps that’s because the crowd have the relaxed look of regulars who’ve come to commune as much as converse. Very much like the habitués of a pub, come to think of it.
   more »

Recent visits to some of the newly opened restaurants had the noise problem e.g. One in the Hazelton Hotel was deafening & next to impossible to talk to one's diner companions. Also, Colborne Lane, where the pounding metallic music only served to add to the din. I don't intend to rush back to either place.

Centro & Crush have the problem.

We go to Rodney's alot but reserve very specific tables to help this problem.

We were just at Giancarlo's last night & are going again on Thurs. & they do so much right - food that you can count on, very good service & excellent Italian wines, but I have to make sure I have a corner table & my back is in that corner. But by the time the place is full, 9p.m. on a Tues. evening, it is loud!

Thanks again for raising the topic. It's an aspect of a restaurant that you should regularly incorporate in your reviews - you can create the Gina Mallet Sound Level Rating!

Now in my 60’s I am not a child, so when I go to a restaurant I want to enjoy the restorative atmosphere of good food and pleasant conversation that the word “restaurant” implies from its French origins. I do not wish to be battered by noise at decibel levels approaching a poorly muffled lawnmower. Hardwood floors, bare table tops, bare walls and ceilings coupled with meaningless (and loud!) background music that forces all the patrons to shout brings the noise level to the point of being unbearable!

Because of noise, I have given up trying to have business lunches with clients or colleagues because for the most part the noise levels prohibit conversation. When my wife and I go out we have a select few restaurants we go to that are pleasantly quiet. My 97 year old mother lives in Ottawa, and noise is understandably very irritating to her, so that when we go out to dinner we usually go to the Wilfred’s dining room at the Chateau Laurier: expensive but quiet! My wife and I recently returned form a sojourn in France where there is never background music, and despite the lack of carpets on the floor there are table cloths on the tables and the atmosphere is hushed and everywhere is the agreeable quiet hum of conversation. Why can’t we be more like the French?

I conclude that perhaps the reason for so much noise is that North Americans in general and Canadians in particular have lost the art of conversation. The reason that restaurant noise is kept so loud is because, for most part, the patrons have nothing to say to each other and the impossibility of hearing each other avoids an otherwise embarrassing silence.

I've reached an age when dining with friends at fine restaurants is cherished- alas, a rarity in these days of pensions and grand children . These night's out are always anticipated with genuine pleasure, warm feelings and now, hope. My hope is not that we'll all meet as scheduled, at our age that's a given, but that the chosen restaurant will provide both ambience and food worthy of our desires.

Not too long ago, I'd assume our fine restaurant to have quiet dignified service, allowing our party to engage in conversations whose gamut could be explored in thoughtful, concentrated pleasure: the pleasures of self expression, discovery and confirmation (think "Scaramouche" or "Eigensinn Farm").

What is a diner to do today? Everywhere we turn there's crowd noise and/or Muzak.

Is it really possible for a chef to spend 10 years apprenticing in France, Germany and Switzerland only to return to Toronto and, under pressure from partners or some marketing fad, open a restaurant where the noise and Muzak levels are equivalent to attending World Cup Game? Has no one heard of acoustic baffling or tapestries? Surely their cost is below or on par with stainless steel and glass.

I know food and noise have always been profitable. "Fran's" for instance. But we all knew this about "Fran's" and dove in with relish, particularly in the days of "Toronto the Good" when "Fran's" was the only place open after 9:00PM and we were hungry for stuff.

I've always posited a rough equation: Price equals quality - and quiet. Now, who can predict? Too often our the $150.00 + per person meal is served in a nightmare of noise. We cannot appreciate ourselves, our friends or the food.

An analogy: A fine meal is like a concert of fine music. First the Overture, the Amuse Bouche if you will. It allows us to settle and prepares our palette/ear for the main course. With the Main we expect complexity, a subtle mixing of ingredients that catch our attention and whose compositional elements yearn to be analysed and shared. Then perhaps we'll get lucky and have an encore.

All of this needs subtlety, space, contrast and quiet. A time and mood to reflect. If it's constructed intelligently, we'll be satisfied and, very important, we'll return. If it isn't, our senses expire early and we go home early.

There are too many of these obnoxious purveyors of unexciting food and conversation killing noise levels. They have turned themselves into neighbourhood hang outs with endless happy hours with "world class" prices.

A few weeks ago we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary. We were having a party the night after our Anniversary but on the actual day (a Friday) we decided to go to one of Oakville's finer restaurants, just the two of us for a "special" dinner. There was nothing "special" about it. The noise level was horrendous, the staff were racing about and there were two tables with 5 children between them. The thing that amazed me was that it looked like this was a typical Friday night out for the families. I know we are antiquated but we would take our kids to Mothers, Pizza Hut, or a big treat would be the Spaghetti Factory. There doesn't seem to be any places that are "special" anymore.

Agree completely, and, at the tender age of 50, I do not want to be written off as an old crank either. BUT, let's create a "reasonable noise level value" index that covers price to decibels ratio. After all, expectations at McDonald's are different from expectations at Susur.

My two recent candidates, given $ 400 per couple with wine, tax, and tip, for worst are ONE at the Hazelton(middling food, sloppy service, and painful noise in a very handsome room--tried three meals and will not return until there are substantial changes, and I am sure there will be) and Colborne Lane(fabulous food, sloppy service, and, if possible, even MORE noise than ONE...

Compare and contrast last night at Via Allegro in the burbs...the same $ 400 per couple, (very very good, if not terribly imaginative, food, served FLAWLESSLY, in a quiet and spacious room. With really, really bad art. )

We eat out more often than in, sometimes with friends, sometimes for business, and NEVER as a couple. So being able to hear our companions is essential. Why restaurants don't cater to us? The owners like to look at pretty young people instead of fat rich old ones? They think we only have a few more years of mobility, whereas their 30-ish crowds will be patrons for the long term? How about that there is so much money in Toronto that good restaurants can be choosy, and by turning up the noise, they attract the young crowd? I note that all of the above places are busy every night of the week...

And why DON'T young people mind the noise? Are they not interested in conversation? Are they already deaf? TV with meals at home?

Pastis is my home from home. I love it. I'm the demographic 25-35 and I'd never take my parents there.....

On a warm summer August evening I booked a table at Quince to have dinner with friends and to catch up with each other’s lives. We could not have a decent conversation due to the noise level. We left feeling frustrated and with the feeling we must be reaching the age of fuddy-duddies ( we are 60’ish). Subsequently with another group of friends at Zucca we actually complained to the waiter.
I tend not to go to restaurants as often now, and will definitely not go if they have open access to the street which only amplifies the noise.
I feel the same about the music that is blasted out in the Holt Renfrew store, my friends tell me they don’t care about us, it is all about the younger crowd. Hey- I am a baby boomer, I am accustomed to being THE target market!
When you compile the list of quiet restaurants, please let me know.

I was so delighted to see that you in your review of Pastis on the weekend agreed with my view as it being one of the noisiest restaurants around. I have only been there a couple of times; but each time I literally could not hear my dinner companion speak. When people have asked me about the restaurant, I tell them that it is too noisy and they look at me as if I am nuts.

Boy did you hit it on the head. BULLSEYE!!

I cannot tell you how many times we have been out either as a couple or with
friends that the noise level in the restaurant hasn't had us leave early or
removed that particular place from our future to do list.

One of the prime examples was Blowfish. We came with another couple to
Blowfish for dinner at 8 p.m. By 9 the music was so loud that we couldn't
hear each other speak across the table.

Then of course as the music gets louder everyone is screaming at each other
to be heard.

We left at 930 and cancelled our last two courses, never to return again.

Similar instance at Thuet, where it was so noisy we refused dessert so we
could leave early and escape the 'din'.

Now as you suggested if we book at a new restaurant we haven't attended
before we ask about the noise level, They usually tell us to book earlier
e.g.. 630 or 7 and we do, and it seems to work.

We are now crossing restaurants with good food off our list where the noise
level eclipses the taste of the food.

> Over the past five or six years, I have been to Pastis several
> times, for group dinners of different sizes and for smaller dinners
> for two. I have generally had good, reliable bistro fare with
> bistro-style service.
>
> Recently, one of my cousins from Paris was arriving in Toronto for
> a quick overnight stay on the way back from a conference in the
> US. I made reservations at both Scaramouche and Pastis--both tried
> and true with respect to food quality and ambience.
>
> When I made the reservation at Pastis, I asked for a banquette
> table as I know from experience that those tables are the most
> comfortable. When I arrived at the half-full restaurant that
> evening, I noted that M. Gurnon and his reservations person had
> knowledge of my request.
>
> We were nevertheless shown to one of the tables in the centre of
> the restaurant right in the middle of service traffic. We asked
> about the other tables (the restaurant was half-empty) and M.
> Gurnon indicated that oh, with the Film Festival, etc., they were
> very busy. In other words, they were not prepared to even consider
> what I recognize to have been, at best, a request as to table.
>
> My cousin and I declined the table and left the restaurant. I was
> very disappointed at the way that we were "managed" and I will
> regrettably not return again to Pastis.
>
> Your review spoke of the noise in the restaurant. I think it's
> an excellent topic as it can for sure irretrievably mar a
> nice dinner.
>
> I wonder however about your experience about asking for a
> particular table or area when you make the reservation, or being
> shown to a clearly problematic table if you arrive without a
> reservation. I appreciate that the restaurant business is always
> pressed to maximize revenues (i.e., by squeezing tables in), but
> like noise, your actual dining location in a restaurant can be
> decidedly substandard and can also wreck a dinner out.
>
> I just thought I would share my experience with you and query your
> experience on table selection in restaurants.

I wish restaurant critics would do a better job giving the WHOLE picture of a restaurant -- not just whether the food is good or the service ok but what the decor's like and of course the NOISE -- whether there's music or not. It's so disappointing to go to a restaurant praised for its food and be unable to enjoy it because of NOISE....

We took a friend that we hadn't seen in 6 months to Pastis in June on a WEDNESDAY evening. We could not hear each other over the noise. We couldn't catch up with our lives and got so fed up we left immediately after our main course. We couldn't wait to get out of there and would never go back.
We find the noise level at almost every place we go to be too high. The men in their 20's and 30's seem to be the loudest at the tables, as if they were in a downtown bar or at a hockey game instead of a nice restaurant.
Thank you for drawing attention to this. We have the money to go out but we are walking away because of noise.

The problem in this part of the world people do not speak quietly. Too many people shout at one another. This really came to me when I returnd from a trip to the UK. Dining alone in a hotel restaurant in Swansea Wales I was intrigued listening to a discussion on the merits of the battle of Gettysburg and the charge of the light brigade. There were six people speaking quietly but very distinctly and I found this absolutely delightful and oh so civilized....wish I knew the answer...

I started reading your blog after visiting toronto and going on the basis of your review to C5, the restaurant in the new ROM wing--- and all I can say is, everything you say about Toronto is worse in Miami! I go to my favourite restaurant Pacific Time in South Beach and yes, my stomach contracts with the noise....

I always enjoy your reviews but your added commentary in this one about the insufferable noise that has, sadly, become so fashionable, particularly when it is exacerbated by parents who will not bother trying to control their "spoiled brat", really hit a chord with me. I couldn't agree more with your points and I would really support and encourage your thoughts about adding a decibel count to your reviews to help me know which restaurants to flat out skip no matter how good the ratings might be for food quality or service.

Men like noise, women want intimacy.....i'm 30 something and over the hectic days of rocklevel clubs and even resto lounges...I want to talk to a guy when we go out..But the rule is that when the guy chooses, it's usually noisy, he calls it "buzz" I call it a turn off because we can't talk ....when I choose, the restaurant is usually small, i love Zucca and Splendido, both great for food and conversation....

Fine dining is not about the "vibe," as one of your readers posted (although it must be gratifying to know that teenagers are reading your column). It is about the shared enjoyment of good food, relaxation and conversation. Excessive noise obstructs all of these objectives. It also induces stress (whether one thinks it does or not) and stress inhibits proper digestion. A great meal should be a soothing experience, and it is the job of a conscientious restaurateur to provide the appropriate environment. That means that any restaurant that seeks to provide a memorable culinary outing should not be jacking up the decibel competition by playing loud music. Unwanted music is just gratuitous noise, no different than, say, a jackhammer outside the window. Unfortunately, Gina, you are right: we now live in a culture with so much external stimulation, many people just don't feel right when the bombardment stops (thus the genius of the ipod).

In France, one finds most restaurants have no music at all or, at most, very soft music that recedes into the background. That in turn allows diners to speak in more muted tones. I find it a great relief whenever I'm there. Finally, I wonder how often customers in restaurants request the music be turned up? I suspect never.

Gina, brava!!

The worse musical experience I had was at Gios Nose...it was a Tuesday, 5:30 PM, (early in the week, early in the night), but the place was almost packed and the music was so loud that the waiter never, ever heard my order correctly...I sent it back. And I did ask for the music to be turned down, but he said that it was out of his control.

There is nothing you can do about hard surfaces for people chatter, except do not eat out on Friday and Sat nights.

You could also contact my son Ross Harwell, who is a professional audiologist (and a musician with a music degree) who knows tons of stuff about music and hearing loss. He is poised to make millions as the boomers and gen Xers age...
His email is in the address above, or ross@heartoronto.ca.

YOUR COLUMN WAS SO ACCURATE. THE NOISE LEVEL IS
IMPOSSIBLE. I AM A MARRIED 62 YEAR OLD LAWYER. WE DINE
OUT 2 OR MORE TIMES A WEEK .WE WERE AT STARFISH
RECENTLY THE NOISE HAD TO BE 80 DECIBELS. FOOD
OVERPRICED BUT OK BUT THE NOISE WAS A TRAVESTY NEVER
AGAIN.IN GENERAL NOISE IS A BIG PROBLEM BUT WE HAD A
GREAT QUIET DINNER THIS WEEK WITH 4 OTHER GUESTS AT
SABATINO'S ON EGLINTON. FOOD GREAT A VERY PLEASANT DIN
ING EXPERIENCE.

I took a couple of visitors from New York to the Drake Hotel having been told that it was the last word in hip...

we were driven out by the loud music -- not only live music but Muzak as well! And the waiter had the nerve to follow us out and ask why we hadn't left a tip!

I just finished reading your review of Pastis Express and totally agree with you about its noise factor. I dined there in September with 2 friends and we all agreed it was noiser than a camp hall or university cafeteria. I can't recall anything about the food nor the service but I did notice it attracted a lot of movers and shakers. Which, for our table, meant I was being bumped a lot in the back of my chair by one particular social striver. Never again am I going back to Pastis.

I like your idea of taking a noise meter with you: I think this is particularly wise, given that the demographics are shifting to an older, more senior consumer, for whom the 5 senses will become harder to handle-especially in noisy restaurants.

Have you ever tried reviewing restaurants based on what their back door entrances look like? Ever caught the staff smoking on milk crates next to piles of garbage, knowing none washed their hands upon returning to serve the customers? I think that would be an incredible revelation for diners in Toronto...just a thought....

Looking forward to reading your reviews in the future.

My husband and I love Pastis Express. yes, it can be noisy but we go late, after 8.30 pm and early in the week.

I have to admit it, i love bar cacophany, I get a lift from Pastis Express at weekends, the noise cheers me up....

Oh go ahead, get a noisemeter....

I suggest that you talk to the management of the bistro. I've done it a few times, and once when the management refused to lower the volume of music I left. Simple as that. Found this on blog action day:
http://what-is-what.com/what_is/noise_pollution.html
And as an ear-sensitive person I've had enough. Let's put an end to unneccasary noise pollution!

I don't go to restaurants just for the food, I also go for conversation with friends. When I have to lip-read, it drives me mad. This is not what so-called "fine dining" is supposed to be about.

I feel compelled to respond to your request about noise in restaurants.

Responding to the positive reviews of Bymark, I booked a table to celebrate my significant others birthday. We were seated at a table that seemed to attract noise from every corner of the large,bare room.While discussing the menu, we both realised that we could not hear each other,unless we shouted. Not wanting to waste $200+ on an experience that neither one of us would enjoy, we departed .
Had a lovely,quiet dinner at Tundra,in the Hilton hotel on University.

people sitting at the same table in noisy restaurants have been known to talk to each other on their cellphones

Good for you for raising this issue in your review.
Some noise is good--too little in a restaurant reads (pardon the pun) as stuffiness, loneliness or death---too much as a killer of connection and communication.
The elusive right amount gives the frisson of 'buzz'.

I have to say I do not agree with your assessment of Pastis in your recent article on Oct 20.

My experiences have always been wonderful.....George is the consumate host and loves looking after his customers. I would rank the service at Pastis at the top of my list in the City.

The vibe is great and the energy in the restaurant always exciting. I don't mind the noise............its a scene.

I've begun to tot up the popularity of beef in restaurants - not steakhouses. And I'm finding out that the steak is the high end resto's top sale, more about this next week. What I have to find out is how good the steak is in restaurants compared to the steak in the dedicated steak houses.

In the meantime, a reader challenged my statement that beef sales declined in North America mostly because of the Beef Fat Scare of the seventies.

I quote from Statscan 2006. Cooking with beef peaked at 1976 at 23.2 kg/person. In 2006, some ground was regained, the amount of beefavailable for consumption rose from 13.6 kg per person to 13.9 kg.

Dipping into Roy Andries de Groot's In Search of the Perfect Meal again....and found another great recipe from the Troisgros brothers...

Sliced Sirloin Steak with Lemon and Capers for four...

the first time you taste juicy, rare and tender sections of beefsteak, served in a soup plate with a natural sauce au jus but distinctly flavoured with lemon juice and the acid of capers, it comes almost as a shock -- it is so completely different from any previous gastronomic experience. By the second or third bite, you begin to realize that it is an extraordinarily successful combination of flavour - the sauce bringing out and magnifying the juicy meatiness of the sirloin. And this is achieved without bearnaise, hollandaise, butter, cream, or flour. With the well-known soothing effect of lemon juice on the digestion, you could eat a couple of pounds of steak in this way and never feel the slightest sense of overfullness. You should prepare, to go with this, a nice mixture of light, seasonal, fresh vegetables, preferably poached or steamed, to be served around the meat as a colourful garniture jardiniere.

2 1/2 lbs Sirloin Steak, about 1 1/2 inches thick

1 tbls butter
1 tbls extra virgin olive oil
2 tbls chopped shallots
2 tbls fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tbls red wine vinegar
1 1/3 cups beef stock
5 tbls demi-glace brown sauce (use any basic French recipe for this)
3 tbls capers, drained
Coarse sea salt to taste and fresh ground white pepper
small handful of fresh chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped fresh tarragon

Preparation takes about 25 mins

Preheat oven to 175 F.

Cut all fat from steak then slice it into strips 1/2 inch thick and 3 ins long

Set heavy skillet over high heat and when it's hot, lubricate with a tbls each of butter and olive oil

Quickly drop in steak striks, batch by batch, moving them around and turning them over almost continuoustly, so that they brown and crust slightly on the outside but remain juicy, rare and tender inside. This will take SECONDS.

Keep steak warm on warm covered platter in low oven.

Lower heat under skillet, add lemon juice, vinegar, stock. Stir thoroughly and reduce it over two minutes.

Work in tablespoon by tablespoon, the demi-glace. Keep boiling hard to continue reducing for about another 5 minutes. Add capers, then season with salt and pepper and add parsley and tarragon.

Now put steak back into the sauce for l0 seconds. Serve instantly in very hot soup plates with about 1/4 inch of sauce in the bottom. Provide your guests with a soup spoon for the sauce.

Serve a red Burgundy or a noble California Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma - and drink a toast to the Burgundian skill of the brothers Troisgros!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IVYAHOKTE5WGVQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=
/opinion/2007/10/18/do1803.xml

The Beeb stopped me cooking a squirrel

Journo Robin Page has funny piece in the Daily Telegraph about how the BBC first asked him to cook a squirrel on air and then nixed it.

Page was asked by the BBC to talk about the way North American grey squirrels are killing off native red squirrels, and what could be done about it. "The only answer is a sensible cull and, to make it "greener", grey squirrel should be welcomed on to our national diet, as casserole, fry-up and even barbecue. And in fact, posh country places are already putting roast squirrel on the menu.

But then someone at the BBC had a good idea; why not eat a grey squirrel on the programme? Page got it all set up only to get the red light. A BBC executive had ordered that "squirrels cannot be seen to lose their lives for an entertainment programme". "Which meant that three squirrels had already died for no reason."

"Cookery can't be entertainment? What about Ready Steady Cook, Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all? Every one chopping up, roasting and mincing an assortment of muscles and organs of beasts, birds and fishes for "entertainment".

What is the difference between eating a squirrel and scoffing a rabbit, a guinea fowl or a piece of prime roast beef? None whatsoever. And it is morally superior to eating soya, which is currently leading to whole eco-systems being wiped out as more land is "won" for cultivation from wild Brazilian forests. (emphasis is mine)..

The reason squirrel eating on The One Show was banned, against the wishes of the programme-makers, was the BBC's political correctness, and the ill-informed animal rights agenda that permeates the corporation. It is the same agenda that kept the countryside marches out of The Archers and that, I believe, swept David Bellamy off our screens when he, like me, had the temerity to join those marches.

FOXY LITTLE TART

It's wintry in the Finger Lakes, those slivers of pristine water spread like an open hand over the rolling countryof upper NewYork State. Along West Shore Road on Canandaigua Lake, the leaves lie curling on the ground before the first snow. I'm driving south along the lakeshore past the old family cottages that have made
Canandaigua an enduring summer resort -- Humphrey Bogart summered here as a child -- not only for Americans but for Torontonians, a mere three hours to the northwest.

My destination is Naples, home of the Great Grape Pie, where the grape vines close in on Main Street. Once, the grapes --big, fat, black Concords -- went to Widmer's Wines, which is spang in the middle of
the village, but then foxy wines went out of fashion and the Concords began to shrivel on the vines. That's when the cottage industry of the Naples Grape Pie, folk food of an irresistible order, came into
being.

At this point, someone who's read Jancis Robinson, the English wine
writer, will cry "Concord grapes? The wine Robinson likened to 'a
wet, cheap fur coat' ?"    more »

A couple of weeks ago I was asking for recommendations about where to eat the best steak in Toronto.

Today I go to http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-chef17oct17,1,6478900.story?coll=la-headlines-food and cry why not Toronto?

Regina Schrambling tells the story of Laurent Tourondel, the 40-year-old wunderkind behind Bistro Laurent Tourondel which is now sweeping the US.

"Three years ago Laurent Tourondel was a chef without a kitchen whose name was anything but a household word.

Today the 40-year-old has an empire so well known it can use shorthand for Bistro Laurent Tourondel: BLT. This month his second cookbook has just been published, his fifth restaurant in New York City -- BLT Market -- has opened to upbeat reviews and he is cooling his suede-topped heels while his first restaurant in Los Angeles is constructed in the old Le Dome on Sunset Boulevard for an opening this winter. Between now and then two more BLT restaurants will open, in Dallas and Westchester County, N.Y., joining those serving his Americanized French food in Washington, D.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Tourondel's original concept is essentially a great American steakhouse crossed with a classic French bistro. The prime meats, generous portions and hearty flavors are all there, but they are matched with creative sauces, jazzy combinations and imaginative side dishes. And the ambience is just as important. Tourondel understood, probably even before New York diners did, that the future lay in top-quality food served in a relaxed but not unsophisticated setting.

Given that he comes at American appetites with a European's awe, he is also not afraid of excess. All his meals start with a hyper-rich bread item, whether a giant Gruyère popover at BLT Steak or cheddar-cream biscuits with melted butter at BLT Fish. What follows is usually just as irresistible.

"People who pay a lot of money for what I do should not leave hungry," Tourondel says simply. His most rewarding moments, he also says, come while "watching customers leave my restaurant -- happy."

Dallas, Westchester County, Washington DC....How about Toronto? Do we ever need a M. Tourondel!

Last week, I ordered the cheapest wine on the menu at Harbour Sixty -- J. Lohr's Painter Bridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2004. We paid $67 for this "entry wine" as it as called by the restaurant.

Now I see that the wine's selling for a mere $14.50 in Nova Scotia, pennies more in P.E.I...

I'm stripping Harbour Sixty of its stars for such grand larceny. Buyer Beware indeed.

Over the weekend I got my first abusive email about my review of Harbour Sixty, the big blowzy steak house where I enjoyed my first taste of kobe beef.

It wasn’t from a feces flinger but a former Journo, David Kingsmill, once resto critic for the Toronto Star. He wrote in the bullying manner that men adopt when they hope to .. er...cow women. I was wrong, of course. He wrote a screed about steak as if he were an expert – I googled him and could find no proof of this. He had not bothered to read my book Last Chance to Eat. Well why should he? On the other hand, journos used to show some collegial respect to each other. But I forget. The subject is steak. In North America, steak is for men only.

Then at the end of his lecture, he dropped the news that he was once the late Harry Barberian’s partner. I couldn’t resist it. Did I hear the sound of sour grapes being squeezed? I reminded him that ten years ago I slamarooed Barberian’s Steak House (in the Globe and Mail) as failing to make even the choice grade. The server didn’t know what steak he was serving, he didn’t even know the wine list, and Barberian had and still has the huge wine list typical of steak houses. It’s not that the alpha males who slap each others backs and no doubt compare penises in the gents actually care about food or wine, but they bow down before the high price put on “big” burgundies.

The steak house itself was down-at-heel and the sides were inedible. That was no surprise. The only purpose of a steak house is steak and it stands and falls by the quality of its steak. I am surprised to see that several steakhouses do not identify the quality of their steaks on their websites. Barberian doesn't, for example, so I would have to call to find out if the meat is USDA prime and dry-aged - which are my preferences.

My criticism of Barberian brought a reproachful letter from Harry himself. Obviously a nice guy. I remember he begged compassion for the server who may have been raw but was a “keeper.”

Pity Kingsmill couldn’t have been so modest. He went nuclear when I mentioned Barberian and threatened ACTION! He was forwarding our sparky mails to the National Post for adjudication or what? Once again I could see himself puffing himself up in righteous anger.

Gosh I wish all reviews excited such a reaction. Push food farther up the news chain.

Talk about getting the last laugh......Mark McEwan's new restaurant ONE in the Hazelton Hotel got across the board pans for service. Tips must have been as scarce as hen's teeth. But now the l6 front of house staff who took the abuse are having the last laugh. They shared a winning Lotto 649 ticket and came away with round a quarter of a mil each....

Two thoughts: can't imagine newly enriched busboys and waiters are going to hang around One any more. Even now they must be heading beachwards glad to be shot of grumpy patrons........

Now presumably ONE will have to start all over again recruiting and training a new team and just when service was improving. During the recent spell of Indian summer I lunched at the sidewalk cafe - I was lucky to get in at 2.30 in the afternoon, the place was packed - and was surprised how good the service was...

I'm a fan of AA Gill, the irreverent and inspiriting restaurant critic for the Sunday Times of London and I'm enjoying his new book Table Talk: Sweet and Sour, Salt and Bitter which has a go at sacred cows...Among them, ORGANIC.....

"Can we just get the organic thing clear? Organic does not mean additive-free; it means some additives and not others. Organic does not mean your food hasn’t been washed with chemicals, frozen or kept fresh with gas, or that it has not been flown around the world. Organic does not necessarily mean it is healthier, or will make you live longer; nor does it mean tastier, fresher, or in some way improved. Organically farmed fish is not necessarily better than wild fish. Organically reared animals didn’t necessarily live a happier life than nonorganic ones – and their death is no less traumatic.

More importantly, organic does not mean that the people who picked, packed, sowed and slaughtered were treated fairly, paid properly, or were free from artificial exploitation. The Chinese workers who drowned in Morecambe Bay were picking organic cockles for a pittance. If you really want to feed the hunger in your conscience, buy Fairtrade.

So what does organic actually mean? Buggered if I know. It usually means more expensive. Whatever the original good intentions of the organic movement, their good name has been hijacked by supermarkets, bijoux delicatessens and agri-processors as a value-added designer label. Organic comes with its own basket of aspiration, snobbery, vanity and fear that retailers on tight margins can exploit. And what I mind most about it is that it has reinvigorated the old class distinction in food. There is them that have chemical-rich, force-fed battery dinner and us that have decent, healthy, caring lunch. It is the belief that you can buy not only a clear conscience, but a colon that works like the log flume at Alton Towers.

In general, I applaud and agree with many of the aims of environmentally careful producers, but it is time we all admitted that the label “organic” has been polluted with cynicism, sentiment, sloppy practice and lies to the point where it is intellectually and practically bankrupt.

And it hasn’t made anyone a better cook."

If someone had suggested to me a couple of weeks ago that I would eat a steak costing $140, I’d have said “Pull the other one”. Yet within a week here I am eating such millionaire’s scoff, a 14-ounce striploin of Wagyu with a big minerally taste of iron filings and single malt scotch that used to belong only to USDA Prime.

OMG, how did this happen? When I wrote my book Last Chance to Eat, I signed off on beef then battered by the Beef Fat Scare, which made breeders slim down beef to wing tips, then by Mad Cow Disease
and finally, the deadly e-coli bacteria that remains a potent threat. I suggested healthy horse as a replacement, and prepared for certified cultured beef steak made in a petri dish.

But I underestimated the cultural importance of beef in North America. Steak is branded on North America by taste and myth. No other food has been actually enobled. James I knighted a mighty sirloin before eating it and
chucking the bones over his shoulder (no, wait a moment that was Charles Laughton as Henry VIII in the eponymous movie). Beefsteak defines the way we eat, and the way we present and cook steak defines us as a food culture.   more »

Another thing to worry about. Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan has extracted vanillin, the essence of vanilla flavour, from cow dung, an achievement that may appall eaters but won the scientist the 2007 Ig Nobel for chemistry. The Ig Nobels are handed out by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research. This year's wackos include scientists who studied the side effects of sword swallowing, and Juan Manuel Toro, Josep Trobalon, and Núria Sebastián-Gallés of the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain won the linguistics prize for demonstrating that rats can't tell the difference between two languages--Dutch or Japanese--when they are spoken backward.

Behavior researcher Brian Wansink of Cornell University (author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think) took home the Ig Nobel in nutrition for his soup bowl that inconspicuously refills as a person slurps from it. He used the deceptive device to examine how people judge how much to eat in a study reported in the journal Obesity Research.

All languages start as poetry and end as algebra….Alfred North Whitehead

Ditto cooking.


Old Food: “The cloudcapped towers, the gorgeous palaces.”..The icy swan embracing a silver dish filled with vanilla icecream topped by a tower of fresh peaches dripping fresh raspberry puree and encased in a carapace of spun sugar…..

New Food: The plate before me is large, square and white, the food is arranged with geometrical precision: a little log of terrine de foie gras is salt-cured which retrieves the pate’s delicate flavour from the luscious fat. Traditionally, sweet foie gras is matched by more sweetness. But here it’s side by side with a few crunchy beans, half a small artichoke on its stem, the way the Turks serve artichokes, spikes of tart punterelle chicory with a sherry vinaigrette and what’s this? Shards of crisp shallot tissue, a spume of tiny lemon bubbles….the flavours are all separate, distinct and intense and savoured alone. I’m blown away.

My friends too are blown away -- with the chanterelle consommé containing three escargots topped with spidery clouds of Idiazabal, Spanish sheep’s milk cheese and with a juicy slice of pork belly matched by a luscious poached egg, wrapped in plastic and cooked slowly in a water bath so the consistency is the same throughout, set off by kimchi, Korean fermented vegetables, cuttlefish and clams.

What a brilliant start to dinner at Lucien, Simon Bower’s new restaurant that stars co-owner, chef Scot Woods who makes an engaging riff on molecular cooking which, by applying scientific principles, wants to disrupt our cozy relationship with food as something familiar and comforting, easy to swallow. You can’t just gulp this food down and enjoy the sensation: you are forced to parse the plate. To think about what you’re eating.

A decade ago, Mr. Bower’s Mercer Street Grill was one of my favourite restaurants with an eclectic menu and a marvelous terrace decorated with bamboo. Now he has transformed an old industrial building on Wellington East with comparable idiosyncrasy – a black and red salon with a flickers of scarlet piercing the the black grilled ceiling, and curlicue chandeliers which make no concession to modernity. Another way of making the diner sit up and take notice – the signals are deliberately crossed.

After the blitzkrieg opener, we’re ready to be further challenged by the second course. A growing problem in many restaurants is how to make the second course as exciting as the first course. Old school eaters still buy into a meat and potato moment – steak eaters demand it! but the small plate tendency shows that many eaters want to eat lite. I’ve several friends who go straight from glitzy opening to glamourous dessert, skipping the “serious” part of a meal entirely.

Molecular chefs get round this by offering long tasting menus of small portions. Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck) has 12 courses on his tasting menu, and Grant Achatz (Alinea) has 24. This is difficult to bring off in my experience. At Madrid Fusion last January, several of Ferran Adria’s acolytes cooked us a disappointing dinner of small lumps of food after the pioneer of molecular cuisine(El Bulli) had shocked us with olive oil spaghetti, or was it caviare, and frozen gins and tonic.

Now I’m expecting something on the order of See Through Frogs legs, but Michael, who is a globetrotting diner, advises,“ Look at the most substantial main course – that sets the tone of your expectations.”

Organic Beef Ribeye at $39 dominates the menu, followed by Milk Fed Lamb. This is to be a hybrid meal. I swallow a twinge of disappointment. Good food is good food and Mr. Woods is an aces chef, masterly at mixing flavours and textures. I pick “fried” organic hen. The lump of skinless white meat is tender and tasty, the knuckle of dark meat with squiggles of fried skin likewise. The few creamed collards are right on, but the buttermilk croquette is too dense. A roast breast of duck is pink and tender, the confit leg juicy, the accompanying house-made noodles and pine mushrooms are languourously delicious.

The only letdown is a block of pureed lobster and skate – with a too elusive taste. I see lobster on the menu and I want a good chunk - not the fibres from the antennules. And this is neither new cooking, which would have dehydrated the lobster brain for taste to the max, nor old cooking which would have saved the dish with an unbelievable sauce. This makes me wonder whether Mr. Woods shouldn’t have kept to his original plot – a meal is a story that needs a coherent narrative thread.

But Mr. Woods gets back in his groove with another blow-away triumph – a pungent lemon and celery sorbet, and later a trio of desserts. Lychee bavarois comprises limpid melon tapioca in coconut and mint soup, Little cups of home-made ice cream are titillating, the warm buttermilk cake with lemon mousse and wild blueberries is yummy.

We also sample a plate of excellent home-made charcuterie. Lucien’s wine list is small but well chosen: we had a Lane Tanner 2006 pinot noir, as universally charming as Brad Pitt’s grin. By the end of the meal, we are all mellowed out, mulling the flavours, toasting the chef. But around 10.30, the atmosphere changes. What has been a foodie oasis of 50 seats is now morphing into the bar scene. The music is turned up and the empty tables fill with drinkers. My heart sinks. If a chef like Mr. Woods can’t make the restaurant work without the infusion of cash the bar brings, what future for creative food in this town? I don’t blame Mr. Bower for making Lucien multi-purpose. I blame the punitive taxes on restaurants and the rigid licensing laws that make it hard for a restaurateur to serve wonderful food without going to the saltmines…er, the bar.

***Lucien, 36 Wellington St. E. 416-481-1188 3-course dinner for two with tax: $138

gina@ginamallet.com

Maybe kids aren't so dumb. Maybe they wonder why their meals are getting more attention than their grades? Maybe they're stressed anyway and can't take food stress. Maybe like adults they can't do everything well at once despite the best intention