Nordstrom's Marketplace Café:

We figured it would be safe now to do Nordstrom without getting trampled, and of course, we wanted to check out their Café. We've visited Nordstroms in other cities and pretty much knew what to expect (though I don't remember quite as much sticker shock as we found on our inspection trip today!).

After returning home I read Nadine Kam's review in this morning's Star-Bulletin. We have had totally different experiences of the Café. All I can do is tell you our side of the story.

We'll start, as Nadine did, with the line outside. Altogether, line to cash register, we probably stood in the ordering process for about 20 minutes. We didn't score the strips of mozzarella-stuffed crust Margherita pizza that she mentioned. We did get menu pamphlets, which was handy as you'll see.

As the line snaked in, we took our trays and passed a cooler with drinks, including bottled fizzy water for $4.50 a pop. They have regular water inside, no charge, so no need to invest quite yet.

Next, the menus came in handy because at the front of the long cafeteria-style line a man behind the counter took our order, filling out a form. If we had wanted soup, he would have given it to us there (but good thing we didn't, for as you'll read, it would have been cold by the time we got to sit down with it). Having placed our orders, we inched forward, gazing at the sandwiches, paninis and pizzas behind the glass counter. One sandwich could be lunch for two, they appeared to be quite substantial. I suppose, had we not ordered already, that we could have chosen from the counter, but since they asked each person for their order on entering, each of us had an empty tray with only a table-number flag with our order sheet clipped to it. Ahead of us was a woman with one soup on her tray, but that was it.

Oh, I said we were inching along, but that was an exaggeration. Maybe centimetering along would be closer. I got to watch the pizzas go into and come out of the wood-fired oven.

Nanette had chosen the salade Niçoise with the seared ahi, to the left in this picture.

At this point the person behind us called on a staff member to see if she could go directly to the cashier, since she had already ordered everything she wanted to eat. Actually, all of us ahead of her were in the same fix, we were waiting to get to the single cashier that was operating out of the three stations. So she didn't get to cut ahead in line, but darn, neither did we. At least we didn't have to juggle shopping bags along with our trays as some people did behind us.

We did get to watch how the cashier, in addition to ringing up each order, was busy fetching things like desserts and bread. Indeed, as we got closer, the woman in front of us (the one with the soup) asked for her crustini. It seems you get one free crustini slice with soup, but they didn't give it to her, so she had to ask. Off flies the helpful cashier to get it, returning with the small slice in a little white paper bag, while the whole line waits.

I had ordered the ravioli, and I should probably have received a little crustini also, but by the time we got to the cashier, I forgot to ask for it. I had asked for a crème brûlée, with two spoons, as we passed the dessert counter, and received another numbered table flag for that, so the cashier didn't have to fetch anything for us. She gave us the two glasses for water we asked for and pointed to the soda machine which would dispense water for us.

Ok, off we go with our numbered table flags, we get our water, and let ourselves be guided to a table by the helpful staff. On the way I counted seven open tables in that section, and it looked like maybe four more were open in the back part. When a restaurant has a long line out front and lots of empty tables, it's a giveaway that things are not working well. But get this. No sooner had we been seated than a guy appears and announces he will be our server today. He took the order slips clipped to our numbered table flags and read them back to us, to check. Yes, that's what we ordered. He said he would bring our orders to us.

Well, why did we wait on line all that time? Wouldn't it have been better to have just taken one of the available tables and placed our order with our server? It took about as long for him to read our order back to us as it would have taken for us to order from a menu. Then we could have been sitting for the few minutes it took for the food to arrive.

The ahi salad was wonderful, as was my ravioli, although the sauce was quite heavy and ordinary. Too bad I didn't read Nadine Kam's review before we went. The ravioli was served on a cool plate, so I was left with the choice of relaxing and chatting over lunch only to have it freeze, or of gobbling it down and chatting while Nanette worked on her salad.

Oh, the crème brûlée came with only one spoon, no one had marked that we wanted two. It was an ok crème brûlée, but my standard is Horatio's version, and this was no challenger.

In the end, we felt that the operation of the restaurant was totally dysfunctional. They can fix it. Just let those who know what they want order from the table. Make sure there are three cashiers working. Relieve the cashiers from having to fetch food. Don't go through giving us glasses to get our own water when someone will be coming by the table with a pitcher later.

Oh, and if it's going to take so long to move through the line, why not deliver the soup to the lady along with the rest of her order? Several staff members hovered nearby, so there could have been some action taken to alleviate the numerous difficulties. Instead, they smiled and heard our complaints, but did nothing.

There are models of a classy cafeteria that work. The la Madeleine chain in the Southeast is a great example. With a much wider and more ambitious menu, things move along quickly and efficiently. Nordstrom can learn lots from them.

Will we be back? I'm not sure. At least not if there is a line outside.

Well, aren't those flowery descriptions of wines you see in the store just designed to sell it?

(Thanks to the Progressive Review News for a pointer to this article)

GRAPE EXPECTATIONS AFFECT WINE TASTING

BOSTON GLOBE - Scientists at Caltech and Stanford recently published the results of a peculiar wine tasting. They provided people with cabernet sauvignons at various price points, with bottles ranging from $5 to $90. Although the tasters were told that all the wines were different, the scientists were in fact presenting the same wines at different prices. The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines.

The experiment was even more unusual because it was conducted inside a scanner - the drinks were sipped via a network of plastic tubes - that allowed the scientists to see how the subjects' brains responded to each wine. When subjects were told they were getting a more expensive wine, they observed more activity in a part of the brain known to be involved in our experience of pleasure.

What they saw was the power of expectations. People expect expensive wines to taste better, and then their brains literally make it so. Wine lovers shouldn't feel singled out: Antonio Rangel, the Caltech neuroeconomist who led the study, insists that he could have used a variety of items to get similar results, from bottled water to modern art. . .

Expectations can even play havoc with experts. A few years ago, Frederic Brochet, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Bordeaux, conducted a rather mischievous experiment. He invited 54 experienced wine tasters to give their impressions of a red wine and a white wine. Not surprisingly, the experts described the wines with the standard set of adjectives: the red wine was "jammy" and full of "crushed red fruit." The white wine, meanwhile, tasted of lemon, peaches, and honey. The next day, Brochet invited the wine experts back for another tasting. This time, however, he dyed the white wine with red food coloring, so that it looked as if they were tasting two red wines. The trick worked. The experts described the dyed white wine with the language typically used to describe red wines. The peaches and honey tasted like black currants.

According to Brochet, the lesson of his experiment is that our experience is the end result of an elaborate interpretive process, in which the brain parses our sensations based upon our expectations. If we think a wine is red, or that a certain brand is better, then we will interpret our senses to preserve that belief. Such distortions are a fundamental feature of the brain.

I hope it doesn't actually play music

Via gadgets.boingboing.net .

Ploi Thai

We want to like Ploi Thai.  We've been back several times for dinner (most recently on the two-for-the-price-of-one-entree coupons in the Advertiser).

There have been several reviews printed. Here is the Advertiser's review and this is the Star-Bulletin's.

We like the decor, the service, and the lack of intrusive TV screens. Soft music is so much better than karaoke TV. The air conditioning is perfect, and the acoustics are very mellow.

Sooner or later I have to talk about the food though, right? And that's the dilemma.

Thank goodness for the 2-for-1 dinner entree coupons or we wouldn't be going there at all. Frankly, $18 for an entree is high for a Thai restaurant in Honolulu, and the food just doesn't measure up to the price. And I have heard that they may be revising their menu...

Since Ploy Thai has positioned themselves at the top of the market, that's how they must be evaluated.

The menu includes many dishes not found elsewhere. We've been spoiled, though, by Cookie, who prepared special dishes for us at the now-closed (and very much missed) Club Pattaya on Nuuanu Ave.

Now, I know that many diners go into a restaurant with expectations based on their experiences at similar restaurants. This sets up a kind of "regional cuisine" not related necessarily to the country of origin of the food. For example, in a Thai restaurant in Honolulu, perhaps because of these expectations, you're likely to find an "Evil Jungle Something" and of course green papaya salad. Also the red, green, yellow and Panang curries.

But did you know that there are plenty of other things to eat in Thailand? And finally, any chef innovates. "Hawaii Thai Cuisine" tends to set boundaries, so anything different from the usual is now "fusion" or unusual in some way. In Thailand or any other country, food is served differently according to the place and the particular eating establishment.  But here, it may be a constraint for chefs wanting to do something new.

At Ploy Thai they are not afraid. The menu includes dishes you certainly have not seen before in Honolulu (check out the newspaper reviews above).

But do they work? The onaga with lemon grass and lime sauce works. We were happy enough with it (but it's $20). As noted also by Lesa Griffith in the Advertiser review, it was slightly overcooked. The Tom Yum soup with shrimp (Tom Yum Gung) was spicy hot ($13). We also tried the Hiding Princess ($18) but found the chicken inside to be bland and underseasoned. It should have had more flavor. Another specialty, the Hor Mok (also $18) seemed to be made of two parts, a red-curry mouse encasing the shrimp and squid, steamed in the leaf and topped with coconut cream. This also seemed underseasoned.

By "underseasoned" I don't mean the dishes weren't "hot" enough. That, I'm happy to say, they are willing to do. Chili heat isn't everything, and of course it's not appropriate for every dish. By "underseasoned" I mean bland.

We did ask for some nam pla (fish sauce) with chilies and they brought a very nice plate with different condiments.

For $18 an entree I expect more. If a revised menu can be more affordable and the dishes more flavorful, this will be a winner.

Cell phone camera post: The Green Door in Kahala

The Food Clock

Try pushing the "Now" button.

FOOD CLOCK by Poodwaddle.com

Locavore's Dilemma

It was a pleasant surprise to learn that locavore is the Oxford Word of the Year for 2007:

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

Now, what does a dedicated locavore do when bad weather wipes out local crops? KCC Farmers' Market this morning was missing some anchor vendors. MA`O Organic Farm was not there. Other vendors had only a limited selection. Clearly, last week's bad weather has taken its toll.

So a dedicated locavore will just buy something else local, and go with the flow. It's important to continue supporting local farmers by buying what they do have right now.

Of course, the supermarket shelves will still be stocked with greens, veggies and other products brought in from distant places, even distant countries. This is the test of the locavore. To resist the temptation of foreign kale, of distant asparagus. To make sure that local farmers still have some income while they deal with the weather crisis.

By "Locavore's Dilemma" I was, of course, referencing Omnivore's Dillema, the must-have book by Michael Pollan, now available in affordable paperback.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan Read more about this title...

The book is about far more than eating locally, but that's part of it. From the Amazon review page:

The first section is a wake-up call for anyone who has ever been hungry. In the United States, Pollan makes clear, we're mostly fed by two things: corn and oil. We may not sit down to bowls of yummy petroleum, but almost everything we eat has used enormous amounts of fossil fuels to get to our tables. Oil products are part of the fertilizers that feed plants, the pesticides that keep insects away from them, the fuels used by the trains and trucks that transport them across the country, and the packaging in which they're wrapped. We're addicted to oil, and we really like to eat.
...
We needn't learn how to shoot our own pigs, as Pollan does; there's hope in other ways -- farmers' markets, the Slow Food movement, restaurants supplied by local farms. To Pollan, the omnivore's dilemma is twofold: what we choose to eat ("What should we have for dinner?" he asks in the opening sentence of his book) and how we let that food be produced. His book is an eater's manifesto, and he touches on a vast array of subjects, from food fads and taboos to our avoidance of not only our food's animality, but also our own. Along the way, he is alert to his own emotions and thoughts, to see how they affect what he does and what he eats, to learn more and to explain what he knows. His approach is steeped in honesty and self-awareness. His cause is just, his thinking is clear, and his writing is compelling.

Now that the already classic book is available in paperback, it's one you can't afford not to have.

Market rewards: Simple weekday dinner

On Saturday the fridge is filled so that we can have a series of dinners from the KCC Market finds. This evening's main course featured fish with three vegetables. Apologies for no photos.

First the veggies.

Pohole

Nanette scored some pohole (from Hana Fresh). This is a fiddlehead fern that kind of resembles asparagus. At first she was thinking of making it with umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum)  but decided to do it this way instead.

Wash, break in half, boil, cooking the stem part a bit longer. Dress with a mixture of pomegranate molasses (which isn't molasses, it's cooked down pomegranate juice), shoyu, and ginger syrup (PacificKool), mixed to taste.

Beet top

Mix peanut butter, ginger syrup (PacificKool) and a bit of rice vinegar. Add to cooked beet greens.

Carrots

Cut into sticks, toss with olive oil and five-spice seasoning from Kaiulani Spices. Pop them into the toaster oven set to 400 degrees. Take out when tender and a little bit browned. The spice can be anything you like, a curry powder for example.

None of these require additional salt since one of the ingredients is already salty.

Fish

Miso butterfish from Ohana Seafood. Lightly rinse off marinade, blot dry with paper towels and broil in the toaster oven.

We ended with rambutan (Wailua Ag Group, the folks who bring the hearts of palm). I cut a ring around each of them in the kitchen before serving, so to eat you just twist them open and enjoy.

Market rewards: Salade Lyonnaise

Frisée from Hana Fresh, eggs from Blue Lotus.

Add prosciutto, Parmesan cheese and toasted pine nuts and you have an elegant dinner salad. Nanette omitted croutons and instead served whole grain cracker bread alongside.

The prosciutto was cut into pieces and frizzled in a little olive oil.

Add sun dried tomatoes to the olive oil after removing the prosciutto, a little red wine vinegar and cracked black pepper, cook down to make the dressing. Wilt the frisée in the dressing, poach the eggs, assemble, and serve immediately.

We don't eat foie gras anyway, but this is scary

From the blog Neurophilosophy :

Eating foie gras may increase risk of Alzheimer’s (click for complete article)

The popular delicacy foie gras (which is French for “fat liver”) is produced in a way that animal rights activists insist is barbaric. Ducks and geese are force-fed corn mash twice a day, through a tube that is inserted into the oesophagus. The birds are slaughtered 2-3 weeks later, and their engorged livers are then removed, to be sold whole or for use in making pâté, mousse or parfait.

But it seems that the slaughtered birds may be the ones who have the last laugh - researchers from the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, in collaboration with a group from Uppsala University in Sweden, have found a potential link between foie gras consumption and the development of a number of amyloidogenic diseases. The findings are published online this week, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The amyloidogenic diseases include Alzheimer’s Disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), tuberculosis, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. ...