"If more than half your menu is in quotes, you are running a metaphor, not a restaurant." -Alt Text

Are there really restaurants out there like this? It's just so far removed from my normal dining experience (package of uncooked ramen half empty bottle of beer while still in bed), it seems unreal.

That said, the food-oriented strips are some of my favorites.

google 'fat duck' or 'heston blumenthal' (gah, spelling fail). they do exist, and the fat duck is reckoned to be the second best restaurant on the planet. it's just not for a dude who'd rather have galaxy nachos (i may be one of those dudes). :D

I love Onstad as gastronome. When I found out he was a foodie (forgive me) it only deepened my love of the strip. Oh, and for more on the cutting edge of cooking, look here and here and while its not exactly molecular gastronomy, here. Enjoy your enrichment. Cause that's what I do. Enrich.

For the last... hmmmm.... 8 years (god damn that makes me feel old) I have dedicated myself to convincing all our mutual friends that my best friend's middle name is Belulah. I ask them not to mention it to her because "she's sensitive about it." That way, people just go through life believing it, and it comes up at hilariously inopportune moments of her life. It reminded me of your Snake Nanny nomenclature.

Also, I love Wodehouse, Douglas Adams and Anthony Bourdain. I wish I was back in Austin so we could be best friends.

Damn, as much as I love the hell out of Heston Blumenthal, Beef completely nails the criticism here

Actually, I'm pretty sure the "restuarant" Onstad is mocking is Thomas Keller's "French Laundry," because they literally do put at least half their "menu" in "quotation marks" for no apparent "reason", and also, French Laundry is in California, whereas Blumenthal is British.

Now, that reference to diners listening to the sounds of frying food as they eat fries is definitely a reference to Blumenthal, who has experimented with the sounds of eating and their psychological effects (ie, apples taste better if you can hear the crunch).

Is this a west coast thing? Growing up in central Pennsylvania, it's basically all meat, potatoes, and corn.

I fucking hate this shit.

I think there's a great amount of distance between us and what we eat these days. I don't want to sound like an unshaven, rustic, independent business promoter with the pamplet and everything, but it's nice sometimes to go to a butcher or a market where people actually used their hands to make the ingredients that you're going to use for your dinner. It's nice not to have something prepackaged or instant.

Making it scientific and deconstructing it seems to just increase the distance. It's no longer chicken - it's Pou from the Gastronome Table of Elements. When someone rolls out the Willy Wonka television ray and beams Essence of Smoke Mussles into the back of your throat, you are not having a nice dinner, you are at the dentist or some such.

I love food. Love, love, LOVE it. I love to taste new things, to experiment in the kitchen, to acquire new tools, and to prepare new dishes that make my family smile. I've failed plenty of times (there's a reason the take-out joints are in the phone's memory) but I've succeeded, too.

I get a vast amount of satisfaction out of the sheer act of preparation, but I have to balance that with the reaction of the people consuming the final product. The "molecular gastronomy" trend seems to me to be more about indulging the chef's whims and stroking the ego, rather than preparing dishes that the diners might actually want to eat.

Or alternatively that there are exceptionally rich people who judge the quality of a restaurant based on how little of the menu makes any empirical sense to them.

This is the saddest eBay auction ever.

Terrible. Interesting however. Since the auction ends on Dec. 10th, I'm going to take the liberty of posting the text.

Anyone like Achewood? Well, I did and got my boyfriend totally hooked on it. For Christmas I ordered a signed strip for him. Its framed too. This one: http://achewood.com/index.php?date=01262007.

Right after I ordered it, I found out he has been sleeping with some 23 year old whore waitress at his restaurant (he just got promoted from sous chef to head chef and it clearly went to both their heads). I feel sorry for her boyfriend too. He seemed nice and cute. Don't know what she wanted with my sorry sack of a herpes ridden man-child.

I can't return it because it is signed. I don't want to give it to him anyway because he is a lying piece of shit and I want him and that skank to rot in hell.

I haven't even opened it so its all wrapped up and ready to go. In time for Christmas?

Liebot is seen in the background of the auction, furiously taking notes.