Food and Whining - A modest outlet for a mediocrity-weary diner.

I am unaware of any process in nature more volatile than that of rating a restaurant. The wildly-diverse experiences that wildly-diverse people can have even at the same establishment mimics the sporadic nature of earthquake predictions, snowflake patterns, or the formation of galaxies. To truly gauge a restaurant, all potential reviewers would need to dine on the same night with the same crowd, be cooked for by the same staff, served by the same server, at the same table, have the same tastes, having had the same prior dining experiences; already a staggering number of variables. Another factor, as any professional restaurant reviewer can tell you and most people discover on their own, is that one's impression of a restaurant can change radically even between visits. Chefs make mistakes, servers have “off nights”, moods of diners vary wildly, and what someone is craving should be aligned (ore or less) with the cuisine of the restaurant chosen. If you're in the mood for a stea...

The classic Caesar salad has descended into such mutant variations as adding "creamy" to the dressing description, "with chicken/shrimp", and - the worst offender of all - the non-adjective"garlicky". The presumed original recipe is fairly simple - garlic, olive oil, salt, anchovies, dry mustard, an egg, lemon juice, Romaine lettuce, grated Parmigiano Regiano, and black pepper. Then, of course, you get into variations - with or without Worcesteshire, Dijon mustard vs. dry, etc. But as far as I'm concerned, there are a few ingredients that can be substituted. In particular and most frequently violated, is the "vinegar for lemon" trick. Presumably restaurants are doing this for a practical and understandable reason - vinegar is far cheaper than lemon juice, especially fresh lemon juice. Then they add a similarly distorting ingredient - "shrimp or chicken". As there isn't much in the way of protein in a classic Caesa...