Had dinner at The Musket Room (1 Star) last night. Really good goods overall, with an imaginative take on NZ-inspired cuisine. Some pictures below:



Long tasting menu


Salmon - very interesting way of presenting / serving it


Egg yolk with trout roe and chicken broth - loved the creaminess of the yolk with the crunchiness with the roe as a contrast.


Quail - excellent preparation; the bread sauce was excellent


Red deer - I really enjoyed this, as it wasn�t as gamey as other deer courses I have had


Coffee cake with orange and a maple leaf (made from maple syrup) - a nice, wintry finish to the meal

GF took me to "Blue Hill" in the West Village (NYC) for my birthday. 1 Michelin Star.
Fantastic food, they had some scallop & pork belly tacos (taco replaced by a radish slice), really yummy.
Great service, nice ambiance, not too noisy.
Highly recommended.

Tail Up Goat in DC on Tuesday night (1*).

Meh. The food was good, and the service was definitely 1*... but... just not 1* food IMHO. Maybe I had the wrong dishes.

They brought out a "non-alcoholic palate-cleanser" which was essentially beet pickling juice. I dunno; I have never been a big beet fan, but it was like drinking pink vinegar with beets.

The rabbit sausage appetizer I had was the best dish IMHO. Also had a pate with gigantic slabs of overly-charred grilled sourdough bread, an over-salted pasta with sausage (good) and lima beans (bit odd given the pasta size/texture) and shaved ricotta (way too plasticy; need a cheese with higher fat content in such a rich dish). Dessert was a grapefruit gelato with a crispy sesame brittle; the gelato was very good, but didn't IMHO work with the sesame brittle.

Of the DC Michelin-started joints I've tried, it was probably the most underwhelming of the meals. I'll give it another go with friends sometime to see if it was just an off night, but would go to Rose's, Kinship, Blue Duck Tavern, or the Dabney first among the 1* places.

Had a business lunch at the 2* Lafleur in Frankfurt the other day. The vegatarian-vegan menu was very nice.

Slight OT: Some kids were playing with their iPhones, taking photos of the food, then asked a waiter to photograph them. I have to say it did bother me a bit. That kind of behavior doesn't fit into a Michelin-starred restaurant IMO. Sorry for being so judgemental haha

You would have hated it when, during dinner, my wife asked the chef at a 3* restaurant in France if we could take a picture with him and he said sure and called over the maitre de to take the picture and posed between my wife and I for the picture.

Not unusual these days. No problem with taking pictures of food, playing is not so nice.

Picture taking is pretty common now since everyone seems to be a food blogger. But if they were using flash, that would be a problem to me.

But it using the phone with sound on would really annoy me. Was that what they were doing?

Not everyone takes pics for blogs - I do it for my own memory (but without flash and quite unobtrusively)

Same here. I use a camera with good high-ISO performance so that there's no flash required, and take shots as unobtrusively as possible. Have done so at pretty much every Michelin-starred place I've been, including all the 3* places (I asked if it was OK at a couple of very-formal locations, including one in Kyoto; it's never been an issue).

No, the sound was turned off. I think we would have complained to staff if it wasn't.
I do respect that people want to take a picture as a keepsake now and again.

But I find it compromises the atmosphere if people are constantly having their phone on the table and are texting, if they stand up multiple times to take photo shots, take shots of the food, ask the waiter to take shots of them, and so on. Not everything needs to be documented.

I would find it poor etiquette, too, if somebody read a newspaper or showed up in jogging pants in a Michelin-starred restaurant. It's not a railway station concourse or a business lounge, for God's sake!

I understand your sentiment. Interestingly I get offered a newspaper quite often when I am alone in a Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant. The first time I was a little taken aback. But in reality I end up reading on my phone in those situations, anyway. So what is more barbaric? In the 2-star Silver restaurant in Vals, Switzerland, they even gave me an iPad with eMagazines.

I guess if you don't disturb or destroy the experience for the other guests, it's ok. Dress-code is definitely important.

I'm a bit confused by the consternation about what people at other tables are doing. Why would anyone pay attention to the other tables? I'm focusing on my own meal and my dining partner, especially if I'm at such an exquisite restaurant.

I dine fairly often at Michelin-started and other fine dining restaurants. I almost always will snap a quick, silent photo of each course on my phone, just to have for my own memory. It never occurred to me that this might be seen as unfitting or bothersome by others. If someone is getting up and using flash and being noisy, that's another matter.

When dining solo, there will sometimes be a book or magazine left on the table for me, especially at French restaurants. I've experienced that at Les Amis (2*) in Singapore and The Waterside Inn in Bray, England (3*).

I also dine often at Michelin and comparable Pellegrino type restaurants around the USA and around the world when we travel. I almost always take photos of my food at such “esteemed” places at the behest of many family and friends who enjoy seeing what they expect to never be able to experience themselves.

I always try to take such photos as discreetly as possible, avoiding flash at all costs and asking if I can use flash in the rare instances where I think it is necessary. I even try to move to a direction where flash would be less problematic for anyone else in such rare cases.

I am of the opinion that what happens at my table is nobody else’s business if it in no way impacts another table, just as it’s not my business what happens at anyone else’s table if it in no way impacts mine. If someone else wants to take photos without flash, or even a rare photo with flash, then I’m OK with that. If someone wants to dress up to someone else’s standard or dress down to or according to theirs, that also is OK with me as it in no way impacts my dining experience.

I also have no problem when people ask a server to take a photo of their table or to join such photos. Everyone is entitled to a memory or two. If one doesn’t like that, one doesn’t belong in a public venue IMO. That being said, if a group gets too overbearing in that effort, I’ve been known to say something in such rare instances. Others are entitled to their approach just as I am entitled to say my peace.

Too many people apparently want to feel better about themselves by seeing or requiring everyone else to behave and dress exactly like they do; I don’t subscribe to that approach or philosophy at all. We don’t live in Victorian England. Restaurants are public venues, though that concept varies a little from culture to culture. So we must accept a bit of diversity in such public venues. I don’t expect everyone to behave and dress the same way, nor do I want everyone to behave and dress the same way. Diversity is a challenge for many...but they’ll eventually get over it.

Years ago I never took pictures, found it inappropriate. Today I do. Mainly I do it for myself, often I also post here. No Blog, don�t have time for it.
I thing it�s also very different how is your relationship to high end dining. For many it�s something very special and perhaps even a rare experience. For me it�s simply dining. At home I don�t it very frequently but when I travel I normally eat at Michelin starred restaurants if possible. It�s some kind of matter of course like I stay at a suite at a high end hotel.