Yarden’s Restaurant Review Blog

When is the best time to dine in a fancy restaurant? When will you get the best service and the best food? Read on for the answer.

I can tell you when not to go. Do not go during the lunch time period. Great restaurants do not have their best kitchen personnel working during the day. Daytime is when they bring in junior chefs to give them experience. The same holds true for waiters and waitresses with no experience. People going out for lunch simply do not have time. If something is not perfect, they will not complain or send it back. They simply do not have enough time to make trouble and restaurants know this. A lunch "hour" is rarely more than an hour.

So by all means go out for dinner, but do not go early. The only ones who dine at five or six in the evening are seniors. They do have time and will complain if everything is not perfect. This drives the staff crazy.  They are usually in a foul mood. I do not advise dining during the early hours.

Of course, the busiest time of the evening is when the best food is served, but there can frequently be long delays. Don't risk your evening waiting for food. Avoid restaurants before 8:30. There is a reason this is called the "rush hour."

The best time to dine is at 8:30 P.M. The best chefs and waiters are all still working, yet the crowds have gone down somewhat. Also, it is rare for restaurants to run out of popular dishes before nine. Finally, no one in the kitchen or out in the dining room considers 8:30 working late. So they are all in pretty chipper moods.

Yes, for the best dining experience, make a reservation for 8:30 and be ready for a great time. This is a universal hint, no matter where you find yourself dining, from Paris to New York. Not too early and not too late means you will have a really fun date!

I got an interesting e-mail the other day from a reader of this blog. I thought there might be others out there who have the same question but were too embarrassed to write in. I will save you all the trouble by answering it here publicly. The question went something like this:

"I recently went out on a date with a great looking girl. Everything was going fine. She loved the restaurant I picked, and we were having a charming conversation. She nodded approvingly when I ordered the onion soup and then a rare steak, and even asked me to order for her. I picked a salad made with fresh salmon and a pomegranate-based dressing. She gave me a warm smile with a twinkle in her eye that seemed to indicate that she was feeling mischievous!

"Then, the waiter asked what I wanted to drink and I ordered a Pina Colada. I couldn't understand why she suddenly was scowling at me until the drink arrived. It was in a tall glass and had whipped cream. There was a straw with a little bamboo umbrella hanging in it and a plastic sword with a cherry through it floated on top. She said she had to go the ladies room and left the table. She never came back."

Has this happened to you? Gentlemen, listen up. If you are trying to impress a lady, order a single malt scotch. Nothing else. First ask the waiter what brands he has. It does not matter what he says, always choose the last one. When it comes, sip it slowly and gaze into your date's eyes. She will always come back.

First, get this straight., Thai food is not Japanese. it's not Korean, Malaysian, and certainly not Chinese. It is a unique type of food emanating from the ancient kingdom of Thailand. Attempts to label Thai as simply "Asian" will all fail. Thai is one thing. It is Thai.

A good Thai restaurant must be authentic in its decor, ingredients, cooking style, preparation, and presentation. I recently dined at the Thai place downtown. To be absolutely honest, I've had better. But let's go through the matrix and talk about what they do right and where they go wrong.

In terms of decor, Thailand is about muted exoticness. In other words, yes, Thailand is special. Yes, it is an ancient jungle kingdom that now is starting to dominate in high tech. But it is not now and never was "over the top." There has always been an aura of mystery surrounding Thailand. The decor in the restaurant must reflect that. The colors must be different, exotic, appealing, but not garish. I think Thai Kingdom does a good job with this.

Thai Kingdom's ingredients are all fresh (as they should be), and they seem to have the right blends of lemon and coriander, the two most important ingredients in Thai cooking.

Where I have a problem is with the cooking style. Thailand was never known for deep frying everything around. Steam has always been the way the Thai women cook. (Sorry to sound sexist, but in traditional Thai society, women were always the cooks). Thai Kingdom knows that many people just love the taste of anything deep fried, so they compromise on originality (and health) in favor of short term taste.

Their preparation and presentation is fine. Authentic and heart warming. I do recommend you go and draw your own conclusions. but for God's sake, don't just order the deep fried entrees. If you look hard, you will find the ones cooked by steam. Your body will thank you.

Many people have e-mailed me to ask a common question about eating in Italian restaurants. The question concerns what type of sauce they should request with their pasta. You might think that this is a simple matter, but you would be wrong. I kid you not when I tell you that the type of sauce you order will determine your entire dining experience. No matter how fresh the pasta is (the best places do NOT use dried pasta), it is the sauce that will make or break it. But before I give you my humble opinion, let's discuss a little background on pasta sauce.

Basically, all pasta sauces are either cream or tomato based. For simplicity's sake, let's call them "red" or "white." Even when a sauce is described as "dripping with basil, oregano, and a hint of pomegranate oil," it must fall into either the red or white category. That is because the flour in most fine pasta needs a strong ingredient that will transfer its flavor. Pasta itself has very little taste. When we eat it, we are experiencing the texture more than anything else. However, when combined with a sauce based on a strong ingredient, the whole dish takes on and enhances the taste of the ingredient. Throughout history, the two ingredients that have been found to be the best at flavor transfer are cream and tomatoes.

Cream based sauces are extremely rich. They may contain all sorts of vegetables and even seafood. The problem I have with them is that unless they are used in very small quantities, they overpower the pasta and are simply too filling. After a fine meal, one should never feel the need to lie down and sleep. One should feel like talking a walk, slow dancing, or getting intimate with that special person. This will simply not happen if you insist on ordering pasta with a cream sauce.

Tomatoes contain an amino acid that actually acts as both a natural stimulant, a relaxant, and according to some, an aphrodisiac. Mark my word, you will have a great evening out if you go "red." And by the way, try not to order white wine with red pasta. Stick to a nice Merlot.

If you have ever suffered from an either short-term or long term digestive disorder, you know how bland your diet must be. After two weeks with a bad case of dysentery (are there any good cases?), I was getting to hate the thought of eating plain toast. Yet that was all I could eat. Even when a friend barbequed a piece of pita bread, it just wasn't all that exciting.

That's why I am so thrilled that more and more restaurants have section of their menus marked "For those who suffer." Typical listings include oatmeal, bananas, rice, and of course, toast. The food may be dull, but at least now when your friends are about to go out and have fun, you are not stuck in the bathroom reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" for the ninth time.

If you ask for the "Suffer" menu, most restaurants also have the good sense to seat you near the restroom. this is not just for your benefit. Too many waiters have fallen when colliding with ill people racing for the bathroom. Separate seating avoids all those problems.

And for dessert, the best places will offer an assortment of Pepto Bismol, Kaopectate, and the great, new "Stop It!" You can take your choice to finish the evening and make it home with no trouble.

Being sick is certainly no fun, but creative dining can make it interesting, to say the least. 

One of my favorite restaurants of all time is Norman and Paul's Steakhouse. This is a place you could dine in year round if your wallet and intestines were to accommodate you.

As you walk in, you decide whether to sit outside on the cheerful veranda or inside the busy bistro. This is a steakhouse and you may get dirty looks ordering a salad. Truthfully, their aged prime beef is fantastic. It has the fat marbling that you see in only the best cuts of meat. Try the rib-eye or the sirloin, both will fill you up and are grilled to perfection. N & P's also makes the best burgers I have ever eaten. You know what the secret to a great hamburger is? Grind up a choice cut of steak and use it as your base. They even have a sirloin and hamburger combination which will give you the recommended daily allowance of beef for a year.

Still hungry? You need to try the Sumo Burger. Named after the giant Japanese wrestlers, this is over two pounds of the finest ground chuck. Eat the whole thing (with bun) and you get your picture taken! It may be expensive and more beef than any one person should be allowed to eat, but that's what fine dining is all about.

They have a marvelous selection of deserts but quite frankly, if you have ordered right you should have trouble getting up from the table much less ordering desert. Norman and Paul's is a great place to visit but please get some exercise in between your trips. I wouldn't want to be responsible for your weight gain.

And what I love is that everyone gets their own bottle of bright red Heinz ketchup. What could be better!

What makes an Italian restaurant truly great. There are so many places, and so many of them serve great food. Many people can make fine pasta and maybe grill a fish, but what truly sets the best Italian restaurants apart is the sauce.

An Italian restaurant should be able to make fantastic sauces, both cream based and tomato based. Cream based sauces should be rich without being overpowering. You can have a great white cream sauce, but if it is too heavy, you will put your customer to sleep before he or she finishes the meal! That is they key, balancing the richness without going heavy. If a restaurant can make a great base cream sauce, it needs to develop several varieties, both with wine and without. Only fresh vegetables should be used (no canned mushroom please!).

Of course Italian food is really known for dramatic tomato based sauces and no matter how good a cream based sauce is, if a restaurant does not have a front line of red sauces, it is not worth going. The true mark of a fine establishment is how good a simple tomato and basil sauce stands out on a bed of light pasta (something like fettuccini or calamaretti). If the sauce brings out and enhances the taste of the pasta, it is a winner. if it hides or otherwise overpowers the pasta, you will have better luck moving on.

Know a great restaurant where the sauce is outstanding? Let me know. I am always on the prowl for great Italian food.

To many people feel that if they order something in a nice restaurant, then they are obligated to keep it. So they force themselves to eat overcooked steaks and dried out chicken. The truth is not only should you send it back, but a good restaurants wants you to.

In every single restaurant, even the very best, mistakes are made. Sometimes there is a new chef, other times an unexpected rush leaves a kitchen in chaos. However, truly great restaurants always learn from their mistakes. If your food is not perfect, they not only want you to send it back, they need you to do so.

That is because unless they hear about problems, they cannot fix them. If they find a series of burned steaks being sold, they know they have to sit down and have a talk with the grill man. However, if everyone just eats the steak and then leaves the restaurant unhappy, not only have they lost a customer, they have lost an opportunity to fix a problem.

I repeat again, all restaurants make mistakes. There is simply no way a restaurant can serves thousands of meals and have all of them perfect. Yet when a restaurant is working hard to be the best, they will work with you, the customer, to make sure you have a great dining experience. So if anything at all is not right, by all means tell someone and insist that the problem be fixed. No problem is to small.

For example, your experience will be less than optimal if you discover that your water glass is filled with warm water. This can happen a lot because glasses are run through commercial dishwashers and then put back on fresh tables. If a server does not wait and let the glass cool ten minutes, then that glass will make even ice water warm. This is a common problem and can be fixed with more training. Yet if management does not know this is occurring, they cannot fix the problem.

So by all means enjoy yourself, but please demand the best.

We dined at a fusion restaurant the other day. For those who do not know, fusion refers to Asian cuisine that mixes dishes from different lands. So a fusion restaurant will have sushi from Japan, maybe a coconut soup from Thailand, and perhaps Vietnamese pho. The dining experience can be indeed excellent.

While different parts of Asia developed their own tastes, there are unique themes that run throughout oriental dishes. The local climate and vegetation all combine to produce an "Asian" taste that is reflected in almost every dish. When the dishes are blended, the results are often much stronger than the individual dishes. This has to do with our taste buds being able to detect variances within a certain cuisine and contrasting them to fill out the experience.

Sushi is a must for several reasons. First, although sushi is usually associated with Japan, it is a dish that is treated as royalty throughout Asia. A fresh, perfect tuna can fetch thousands of dollars at the sushi docks. Ripened and boiled sea urchin is valued wherever you travel on the subcontinent. Many of us that come from land locked areas, simply never developed a sophisticated appreciation for fish and the effect that sea water can have on diet.

A good fusion restaurant also will help suggest dishes that naturally go together. If you are ordering pad Thai, do not order low mien. Order a smoked fish and you will find that the dishes match up perfectly. Just make sure that there is plenty of ginger sauce around the table.

Everyone seems to be flocking to the new restaurant on the corner of Fifth and Elm called the Salad Bowl. I tried it out last week, but I have to say, the results are mixed.

First, I have a lot of trouble with a restaurant whose whole theme is salad. I mean salad is healthy and can be tasty, but if I want a salad, I don't really want to go out and spend $20. Lettuce is cheap. Cucumbers and tomatoes are cheap. Salad dressing is not only cheap, it lasts forever. And the thing about salad is that as long as the ingredients are fresh, all salads taste pretty much alike. So why would anyone spend $20 for a salad when they can make one for under $5.

Now the Salad Bowl does have more than salads. I like their soups. The pumpkin coriander soup is really good. Also, the apricot chowder is well, different. But you should still try it. Finally, the cheese and bean soup was a great example of experimentation. I certainly can appreciate a kitchen that is always pushing the envelope, trying new things. However, this soup... maybe you should just skip it. Cheese and beans is just not a fantastic combination.

If you stick with salad you can lose weight and feel healthy. Yet my advice is not to waste your money by going out and buying salads. You should save the money so that you can buy more exercise equipment. Instead, go to the Salad Bowl and have an interesting soup. Even in the Summer, soup can be fun