Survey Says...

You finish a meal and your server sidles over sheepishly and asks you to spend a minute filling out a written survey. A) You do it because you’re mad as heck and someone’s head is going to roll. B) You do it because it’s your favorite waitress, like, ever. C) You would have done it, except you’re in a big hurry to get home because your show is on tonight.

The cumulative value of these surveys to a restaurant is nebulous. On average between 1 and 5 percent of the dining public will fill out a paper comment card, and these responders are generally the disgruntled and the cheerleaders—in other words, the statistical outliers.

Long Range System’s electronic comment card, used at Bd Mongolian Barbeque (see today’s review), captures the opinions of 75 percent of diners. It’s the brainchild of Ken Todd.

“I was in the restaurant business for 14 years. Back in 1995, I was out to dinner with the wife one night and had a typical bad experience. The manager came around and asked how everything had been. I said it was fine and my wife gave me a hard time. I just hadn’t wanted to make a scene. A light bulb went off.”

Todd started a business, got a patent in 2000 and ended up partnering in 2002 with Dallas-based Long Range Systems, a producer of restaurant paging systems. The idea is simple: At meal’s end, your check arrives on a black clipboard with a keyboard embedded in it. Hmm, that’s fun. Feel like taking a quick survey? Sure.

Survey pads are placed in a docking station, the data is downloaded every night and the restaurant is sent a pdf of the results the next morning. “A lot of measurement devices don’t isolate individual servers,” says Todd. “We generate a report every day that rates individual servers on whatever the restaurant is trying to measure. A restaurant can instantly react, and servers can be coached and counseled.”

It sounds a little Big Brother, but this new technology could mean positive change for the dining public. Transmitters in the survey pad mean that some survey responses trigger a page to the on-site manager—an affirmative response to “Is this your first visit?” or a negative response to “Would you recommend this restaurant to a friend?” mean that a manager is heading your way to guide or to solve a problem. The system was used in only 5 restaurants last year—now it’s up near 300 internationally, with names like Chili’s, Shoney’s and Buffalo Wild Wings jumping onboard. With the potential to capture demographic information—age, income, gender, zip code—other applications are numerous. Already it’s being used at Mercy Hospital in Miami as a satisfaction measurement.

Serious stuff, but still it’s novel fun for the restaurant-goer.

“Kids like to play with it and some people perceive it as a toy,” says Todd.

Who says you shouldn’t play at the table?

SPAMendment

My brother just sent me a photo of SPAM Musubi (Hawaiian SPAM sushi delight) but I couldn't copy it to paste here. It was stunning. I did find this one, though, which captures some of the glories of nori-wrapped SPAM.

A PhD in canned meat

The year 1937 was a big one.

Amelia Earhart, disappears in her attempt to be the first woman to fly around the world.

Route 66 is officially completed, total distance: 2,448 miles.

The Golden Gate Bridge opens.

Yeah, yeah, forget all that. The year's big breakthrough: SPAM is born!

It was originally called HORMEL Spiced Ham when the company held a contest to create a name as distinctive as the taste. The winner, Kenneth Daigneau, received the grand prize... $100.

And now, to celebrate SPAM's golden anniversary, The Book of Spam has been published.

I learned a lot, I tell ya. SPAM was responsible for our victory in WWII. There is lite SPAM and SPAM singles. SPAM lasts forever, "on your shelf and in your soul."

For more SPAMlore, visit here.

One toque over the line

Riddle me this.

In a government study released a couple weeks ago, workers who prepare and serve food (cooks, bartenders, servers) had the second highest rate of depression among full-time employees, at 10.3 percent. Government officials tracked depression within 21 major occupational categories. They combined data from 2004 through 2006 to estimate episodes of depression within the past year. That information came from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which registers lifetime and past-year depression episodes.

Conclusion: Working in a kitchen can be a crappy, soul-flattening job that beats you down until your amygdala is the consistency of loose Cream of Wheat.

Yet, Ludia Inc. announced yesterday that it will unveil video games based on the Hell’s Kitchen television series next year. Ludia founder and CEO Alex Thabet says, “The show has millions of viewers, and the game will bring the fun of the kitchen boot camp experience from the TVs to the PCs and consoles of this rapidly growing audience.” 

An electronic hell-spawn Gordon Ramsay will taste and comment on the culinary creations of players--browbeating, posturing and sprinkling those angry specks of spit all the while.

Conclusion: Working in an electronic kitchen presided over by a tiny, preening, British electronic chef is not a crappy, soul-flattening job that beats you down? Good times, good times.

Oh, and the video game comes with a recipe book.

Hold the phones

I'm back. I got in my car yesterday, obeying most essential traffic signals in my quest to worship at the altar of boutique-and-largely-organic-or-sustainably-grown-or-just-plain-fancy foods. I walked into Whole Foods and...

it was still, um, just like Wild Oats. The signage hasn't been changed, the house brands still say Wild Oats, the shopping bags emblazoned still with Wild Oats. I went straight to produce, hoping to encounter the vegetable-obsessed hirsute hippies that are a Whole Foods trademark. Not a one (although one smiley produce boy said I have nice hair, so that one can stay). The checkers, unfortunately, are still of the Wild Oats ilk (holding up a fennel bulb or a crookneck squash, furrowed brow, hoping for SKU illumination). The bakery: still Oatsey, not WF-ey (meaning, find me a baguette you'd want to put in your mouth).

I want Whole Foods prepared foods! I want the absence of this stuff! I want the cheeses and the wall of good vinegars and sauces. They say it will happen incrementally as the Wild Oats inventory runs down.

Alright, I'm not totally a slavering devotee. I understand that Whole Foods Market has had some dubiously ethical labor practices (anti-union). And that, essentially, WF is the organic food equivalent to Borders Books or Wal-Mart--meaning consumers benefit from economies-of-scale due to the juggernaut's vast purchasing power, but that a force that large can influence what gets made, how it gets made and what hoops the little farmer/producer/vendor has to jump through to be considered for the big league. That's a lot of power to wield.

Whereby my prayers are answered

Oh mercy me. Today I'm cooking a "Bouillabaisse, Florida Style" for Terry Tomalin's Gulf & Bay section. For this, I need a bunch of Florida seafood--clams, shrimp, grouper, stone crab. I got up and made my grocery list. I thought to myself, "Where can I go for one-stop shopping? Dang, sure wish there were a Whole Foods around here."

I called Wild Oats. A lady answers and says, "Whole Foods, may I help you?"

What?!

I was flummoxed and sputtering. I think she thought it was a crank call, like I was going to ask her if she had Prince Albert in a can.

How has Wild Oats  quietly, secretly, craftily become a Whole Foods right under my nose (alright, it's a big nose)? (Food editor Janet Keeler then told me that the business section had a story about this months ago. But still.)

I know Michael Pollan doesn't like Whole Foods. Fine, Michael, enjoy the Piggly Wiggly or whatever. For me, Whole Foods' cheese selection, meats and sausages, boutique produce (blood oranges, abundant wild mushrooms), dried pastas--it all makes me happy in my heart.

The change occurred two weeks ago and they are slowly sweeping out all the Wild Oats products and ushering in the Whole Foods ones.

I'm going shopping. If you need me, I'll be at 1548 N Dale Mabry Hwy., Tampa, FL 33607. (813) 874-9435.

Last supper

There's this new book I heard about on Zagat.com. Released on Tuesday, it's by photographer Melanie Dunea and it's called My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals. Why didn't I think of that? A cheap way to call up all those heroes and villains of the culinary world and weasel my way into their kitchens, maybe even their homes. We'd sit down, I'd ask some questions and they'd be charmed by my devilish wit, and as they formulated their dream last meal on earth, they'd decide to cook it up for me, right there on the spot....

Sorry for that brief reverie. Got a little lost in it. Anyway, it's got me thinking about what my own last supper would be.

I guess health concerns aren't an issue (who cares about saturated fat if you have six hours to live?), so I could have a big pile of saturated fat. But I'd need something spicy. And also something nurturing, like miso soup or chocolate bread pudding. Should it be ethnically coherent? Alright, here goes, my last meal:

Start with pan-seared foie gras on some little toasted brioche thing, topped with a sour cherry compote (maybe with a glass of Talley Vineyards Arroyo Grande Valley pinot noir).

Then tempura green beans with a spicy ponzu dipping sauce. No, that's stupid. How about a next course that pairs fried tofu with a really spicy peanut sauce and a pile of that Japanese sesame seed spinach (goma ae?). Add some noodles--those really wide chow fun noodles pan-fried so they get a little browned, with cabbage and snow peas and bean sprouts. No booze with this course, unless there's a little riesling laying around. Maybe a JJ Prum spatlese.

That's still just my second course. For entree, hmm. I'd need a stunning potato gratin, and maybe something classic and retro like a filet with a bordelaise sauce. And long, crisp stalks of asparagus that's been peeled at the bottom part. Hollandaise would be too much, right? Verging on gross? I want it anyway. I don't really feel like a cab or something and it's my party. A glass of big, fat California chardonnay. I don't care if it makes me a plebe.

For dessert, how about one of those individual chocolate cakes that ooze when you cut into the middle. With a big poof of unsweetened whipped cream. And a butt-kicking cup of coffee.

Alright, I'll go quietly.

Who cares what I've eaten?

When I was a kid, my family was friends with another family in Oak Ridge, Tenn. My parents would go out with this couple for dinner and all four kids would get one babysitter. At the night's end, the other mom would come into the kids' room and, in a quiet, murmuring voice, she would proceed to recite to her children exactly what she had eaten that night.

I mean, the whole dang dinner, explicated endlessly. I would drift off to sleep listening to her saying things like, "green peas with those little onions, and soft, pillowy rolls with foil-wrapped butter...."

The takeaway, for me, was that listening to someone talk about what he or she has eaten is fundamentally boring. I grew up to be a food writer and I still thought this. Good food writing is not about listing what you ate. A restaurant review should be edifying, sure (should I go to this restaurant or should I save my money?), but it should also be entertaining. Fun to read. There should be painting a picture (the dishes, the ambiance, the service, etc.) as well as thoughtful synthesis, hilarity and hijinks, drawing of larger conclusions, jokes, verbal slights of hand.

I was saying all this at a staff meeting a couple weeks ago, when Eric Deggans basically told me I'm wrong. He told me about an entertainment blog that he likes. At the end of each entry, this woman lists what she has eaten for lunch. Just lists the stuff like this: pulled pork, beans, beets, corn.

I'm not willing to totally concede, but there is something perversely interesting about her daily chronicling of foodstuffs. A strange form of voyeurism.

Latte art

Both last weekend in New York and this weekend in San Francisco I experienced a small thrill: Latte art.

You go to a coffee shop and order a cappuccino. And the barista goes hog-mad and creates a stunning work of art out of foam. These designs are  created in espresso-based drinks in one of two ways. First, the barista may manipulate the flow of milk from a metal jug into the espresso (this is called "free pour" latte art). Second, designs may be drawn on with a little metal instrument or using stencils or powders.

Watch this video to get a feel for what I'm talking about.

The beauty of it is that latte art is coming to a coffee shop near you. The Southeast Regional Barista Competition takes place this weekend at The Harborview Center (300 Cleveland St., Clearwater), with baristas from all over the southeastern states competing for foam supremacy. It's free and open to the public, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with the finals held Sunday 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Dinner and a show

I just emerged from a truly nightmarish 36 hours of travel. No, I wasn't coming from Calcutta. Only Northern California, with multiple hours spent idling on various tarmacs, sleeping on the airport floor, that kind of thing.

But then I got home to find the first copy of my new book at my front door. It looks like this. And you can buy it here.

Leafing through it with wonderment and joy, it dawned on me that Kissimmee has a raw deal. Kissimmee has a love/hate relationship with Orlando. Orlando is the big Kahuna, the main event, and Kissimmee seems fated to be the red-headed stepchild, an also-ran. Even the convention and visitor’s bureau tagline subtly reinforces this: “Make more dreams come true.” So, your main dream involves mouse ears, but if you’re not done dreaming, we’ve got some others we’d like you to test drive.

Well, there’s one arena in which Kissimmee dominates, leaving Orlando quivering and chagrined. It’s the phenomenon of the Dinner Adventure. This is not your father’s murder-mystery dinner theater. We’re talking pageantry, death-defying feats of agility and cunning, costumes, whooping-and-hollering, all witnessed while gnawing on regulation medieval turkey legs and such. Many of these shows draw 1,000 people at a time, two shows a night, every night of the year.

The granddaddy of them all is the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament (mostly because there are too few places where you have a waitress in medieval garb saying, “Hi, I’m Heather and I’ll be your wench tonight” and in which you eat sans utensil, with only a napkin assist), but Arabian Nights Dinner Attraction is way up there, too. Orlando has Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede Dinner & Show and Pirate's Dinner Adventure, and SeaWorld has Makahiki Luau Polynesian Feast & Celebration and Disney has the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, but Kissimmee's offerings really kick all their butts.

What makes these things good is that the tables set up in long rows around an arena and each diner gets a color marker (in the case of Medieval Times you wear a colored paper "crown" of crepe paper) that identifies them with a section of fellow diners and a particular knight—it encourages tribal behavior, bonding and robust catcalling. All things you want maximize while dining.

You can read about it in my book.

Incidental food

If you look forward to going to the car wash as much for the free popcorn as to get your car buffed, you'll understand what I'm about to say. There is food that one encounters that makes life's little errands palatable. We bargain with our kids and with ourselves: If I finally return the Dust Devil to Costco, I'll treat myself to that chicken thing with the cheese in the middle at the snack bar. If the kids don't melt down in line at the electronics store, I'll buy them a smoothie from the cafe.

These are not restaurants, per se, but purveyors of food that are so conveniently and craftily located that we cannot help ourselves. We buy it because it's an emergency: We are starving, bored or in need of a little love. We may not give this food a second thought, but many of us eat at these places with more regularity and with more gusto than our most favorite restaurants. And some of them may serve up food that rivals that at our favorite restaurants.

What are your favorite incidental food venues?

Whoa, it comes right out of the faucet.

I went to New York last weekend with four friends. We whooped it up. For example, Friday night ended with shards of multiple drink glasses shellacked to the inside of my purse with the contents of several votive candles. It was that kind of whooping.

Still, a few things came clear through the haze.

First, NYC is crawling with famous people. Who look entirely like themselves, only with less perfect hair. Here are the people we saw:

The Woody Allen and Julie Andrews sightings are less rock-solid than the others. Don't these pictures make you wonder why famous people reflexively grip the sides of their heads when photographed? But I digress.

The second thing that came clear is that tap water is the new black. No more Perrier or San Pellegrino or Evian. Collectively, the New York dining public has agreed to drink water right from the spigot. It's amazing that real change can occur so quickly. We read about how much waste is produced and fossil fuels are expended in our bottled water mania, and WHAM, I'll take tap water, please. People were even carrying around personal nalgene bottles filled with tap.

The third thing I became dizzyingly aware of is just how good New York City restaurants are. There are cheap ones, fancy ones, bustling ones, ethnic ones--many of them so scary good that you have to moan and roll your eyes during meals. So there I was all weekend, moaning, rolling my eyes and picking glass bits out of my purse.

Why food blogs suck eggs...

There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal last week by Katy McLaughlin that struck a nerve with me. Here's how it starts:

Dine, a contemporary American restaurant in Chicago, has been open for less than two years. But on one popular Web site, it is already rated half a star shy of Charlie Trotter's.

How did Dine garner such favorable reviews? One thing that probably didn't hurt: It fed many of the reviewers free. Last August, Dine spent about $1,500 on an event for members of Yelp, a Web site where consumers post reviews and rate restaurants. The nearly 100 members were treated to an open bar, duck roulade appetizers and red velvet cupcakes for dessert. As a bonus, they all received certificates for discounts on subsequent meals. The result: a torrent of favorable reviews on Yelp. Most reviewers mentioned that they attended a Yelp event, though few highlighted that the food and drink was free.

"I think if I was picking up the tab I wouldn't enjoy it as much," says Leigh Kelsey, a 28-year-old Chicago file clerk at a law firm who attended the event and posted positive comments on Yelp. A spokeswoman for Dine says attendees were not required to write reviews of any nature, positive or negative.

As online food sites become increasingly influential in the restaurant business, chefs and owners are plying bloggers with free meals to get good write-ups. Some are also posting favorable reviews about themselves on popular Web sites or becoming Internet scribes.

So, basically, the long story examines why restaurant critics at newspapers or magazines--those critics who dine anonymously; who do not take anything for free; who do not cultivate close relationships with restaurateurs, waiters or bartenders--are fundamentally better. Distance gives a critic perspective, and not feeling indebted or entangled with a restaurant allows a newspaper or magazine critic to evaluate more objectively.

Amen, sister.

Small is beautiful

My review today is of a new small-plate restaurant in Hyde Park called Cheap.

A reader wrote me about his favorite small plate restaurants. At the top of his list is dim sum. In homage to that--and because my in-laws just got back from China--I will show you a tantalizing array of dim sum now, courtesy of my father-in-law:

"My favorite small plates are at T. C. Choy's Asian Bistro.  Those are of course dim sum.  I would be tempted to put reichstaffel ahead of that choice, but there are no Indonesian restaurants in the Tampa Bay area to my knowledge.  My preference for Asian cuisine comes from being a teacher of Asian studies for 35 years.  Our tastes are not totally in synch.  I went with a group of Chinese friends to Yummy House and we found the Cantonese food there to be too bland.  However I must admit they were out of the highly recommended dou fu and none of my group were from South China.  If you want to try something spicier, go to Fushia.  It's on Amberly Drive just to the right of the intersection with B. D. Downs--a little over a mile north of the Bearss Ave. intersection...They serve dim sum that is modestly priced but not quite up to the level of the Asian Bistro.  Fushia's strength is in Szechuanese cooking.   The owner hired a chef down from NYC and he knows his stuff.  For starters,  the hot and sour soup is done just right.The eggplant hot pot is as good as I've had anywhere. The Yan Jian pork, and Ma Po dou fu are also fine. So are his renderings of whole fish if you go with friends or family. Stay away from all Japanese offerings--he hasn't a clue. The twice cooked pork is too fatty for Western tastes, though the Chinese love it. If members of your party are not into the spicy stuff, he can prepare Cantonese food with skill and there are many such dishes on the menu. But you must ask for the Chinese menu. The owner has been catering to Western tastes and the luncheon crown with a limited menu of the old standards. Don't worry--the Chinese menu is in both Chinese and English. I have been enjoying your reviews and try to take full advantage of them. Keep up the good work."--Harvey Nelsen, professor emeritus

Eating alone aka declaration of independence

More feedback on dining alone:

I really appreciated your article about solo dining. I started dining alone in college – 'cause friends would rather save what spare cash we’d have for clubs or bars. While I also enjoyed those establishments with friends…I wanted to eat food that didn’t come from campus or a fast-food joint everyday. That is when I started going to sushi restaurants, Vietnamese spots, and oyster bars alone. Friends thought I was crazy, because they knew me as a chatterbox and a sorority brat. But, what I learned 10 years ago that many people might never get to learn, is having a true sense of confidence and enjoyment in being alone where most people don’t have the nerve. Like your article, I think dining alone can be very satisfying and entertaining. Thanks for writing about a topic that relates so well to me! I was beginning to think I was crazy. Last month, I left my new baby daughter with my husband and went out for a drink and appetizers while I read a book!--Jane

Laura, finally an article about this. I love dining alone. In fact, though happily married, I would fly to New York for three days of wonderful restaurants, theater, and concerts. I savored Danube with the Klimts surrounding me and endless courses (and waiters) with the chef's tasting menu. I'll never forget the pan-seared halibut in a puree of cauliflower and white truffle at Picholine or the dish of lobster done three ways at Cello on the Eastside. Sometimes I'll take a book or magaizine, but as you suggest, I love just people-watching as well as simply concentrating on the great food!--Tom in St. Pete Beach

I love eating alone and do it regularly. I've traveled all over the world alone too, so it was the natural thing to do. I was always treated with special attention. Even locally in Tampa Bay, I have my favorite restaurants I eat at often. I tip very well, get to know the owners and staff on a first name basis, and they are always happy to see me. I find the whole experience delightful. Thanks for a great article, but there is a positive spin on it to. Lots of folks like me out there.--Elisa Abolafia

Just a short note to thank you for your article on solo dining in today's St. Pete Times.  It was most interesting--I am often a solo diner when I travel--and it was the first time that I had read something on the topic with such a light-hearted combination of affirmation and practicality.--Ray Luck

Oh solo-mealo!

Started to get some good feedback on my dining alone piece in the paper today. Here's one I thought was very thoughtful, from reader Ann Hipson:

What a great article!  As a single woman of mature years, I decided long ago that if I wanted to do something, I would do it—even if no one wanted to go with me.  Why deprive myself?  This has included eating alone.

I find that eating alone is most comfortable keeping certain things in mind—

·         Begin eating alone at lunch.  It’s a great transition into the world of solitary dining.

·         There are some restaurants that are inherently uncongenial to the woman eating alone.  These include most chain restaurants on Friday and Saturday nights.  You’ll be out of there in 30 minutes with food splashes on your clothes from dishes being slung at you.

·         There are some restaurants that are congenial to the solitary diner.  These include mom and pop restaurants and high end independent restaurants. 

·         To indicate that you do not wish to be hurried, order a glass of wine BEFORE ordering your food and decline to order until you have savored most of the glass.  High end independent restaurants especially respect that. 

·         Dress up.  Stand up straight.  Approach the hostess or maitre d’ with confidence. 

·         Ethnic restaurant can go either way.  Many years ago when I was young, I lived in West Tampa and because I didn’t like to cook, I ate out a lot on Boliche Boulevard.  Most of those restaurants treated me like one of the family and I could have spent the entire evening there and they wouldn’t care.  However, once a Chinese restaurant in Cardiff, Wales refused to seat me in a totally empty restaurant because they had “reservations”.  Other ethnic restaurants have been obviously uncomfortable with the idea that I was by myself. 

·         Be friendly but not overly familiar with your server.  The server wants to be respected and treated well, but he or she has enough friends and probably (unless the night is really slow) does not want to be your best friend for the evening.  Being friendly also sometimes brings little goodies from the kitchen. 

Thanks for the article.  Let’s hear it for the solitary diner!

Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?

I’m working on a round-up story of how notable local restaurants accommodate the needs of vegetarians. Which has prompted me to think of the needs of vegetarians.

A menu is a text, a way for us to interpret the vision and aesthetic of a chef/artist. We read through each dish, skimming the ones that don’t interest us—na, no sea scallops, not in the mood for veal—but some dishes capture our attention. We scrutinize the details, we imagine the sauce, the accompanying starch.

This should hold true for vegetarians, too. If a menu, in small italic print at the bottom, says merely, “We can accommodate special dietary needs,” the restaurant has punted. They have not imagined, executed, tweaked and menu-marketed a meat-free dish. They’re just making something up on the fly or, even worse, asking the vegetarian customer himself to come up with an idea.

It’s also not enough for a restaurant to say, “we can make any of the entrees vegetarian” by either substituting tofu or by merely deleting the protein. Then it’s not the dish the chef intended. With the protein deleted, there’s a gaping hole at the center of a dish, a hole that, texturally, tofu can’t always fill. Also, what does this mean for the price? Delete a $36 filet mignon and sub tofu—what’s the revised cost to the customer?

Another strategy restaurants sometimes adopt is to feed a vegetarian a variety of the side dishes from other entrees. So, a pile of “vegetable medley,” mashed potatoes, etc. Nutritionally, the lack of protein makes this approach inelegant.

Having just visited nine out of the ten restaurants I'm writing about, my conclusion is basically that every restaurant should offer at least one meat-free option that has had the same thought brought to bear on it as anything else on the menu.

Wine Whine

What’s a reasonable wine mark-up in restaurants? It seems like generally I see roughly two times or two and a half times the restaurant’s cost (which is wholesale, not the retail price). Some of this mark-up can be attributed to the cost of temperature-controlled cellaring, serving, decanting (oh, well, sometimes), stemware, washing the stemware, etc. But really, wine mark-up is where many restaurants make their real money.

A lot of places don't have a consistent mark-up across the board. It's a sliding-scale strategy whereby less expensive wines carry a higher mark-up and the most expensive bottles are more modestly marked up. Same with food, meaning the food cost for a $20 chicken dish is actually $3, but the $35 rack of lamb costs the restaurant $20. Food cost is determined as an average of all dishes.

So, if a restaurant pays $6 for a bottle of wine, it could command a wine list price of somewhere between $12 and $18. A wine that costs the restaurant $60 might be priced at $120. Thus, the better "deals" may be had at the higher price points on the wine list.

This all make sense? Anyone have strategies for getting a good deal on restaurant wines?