food-focused

A week or so ago, Nick and I went to the Le Relais de l'Entrecôte, after some internet research about the best place to get steak frites in Paris. It was fantastic. There's no menu. When you come in, your waitress asks you how you want your meat cooked, and what kind of wine you want, and then she disappears. Five minutes later, a salad and a plate of bread appear on your table. Five minutes after that, you're looking at a moderately sized portion of steak, covered in mysterious pesto-esque sauce, accompanied by a pile of perfect frites. After we finished, Nick and I were chatting about what a great meal it was, and then the waitress showed up with what we later realized was the other half of our steak, and another plateful of fries. Amazing! We were way too full when we left, but really happy.

The meal got me thinking about how some of the best meals I've ever had have been in restaurants that do only one thing, like Le Relais. There's Diporto Agoras, a little cafe in Athens with green-trimmed windows that had two plates of grilled fish, chick peas, and mysterious vegetable mash on our table 30 seconds after we'd sat down. And Bale Well Cafe in Hoi An, where the proprietress taught to toast in Vietnamese, and demonstrated the proper way to roll the Vietnamese pancakes we didn't order.

It makes sense that restaurants like that would be amazing. They only do one thing, so of course they've learned how to do it really well. The customers aren't allowed to mess things up by ordering something other than the best dish on the menu. It's just like we learned in business school, focused factories that only make one thing are much more productive and effective. (I wish they'd taught us that with a steak frites case study instead of a hernia hospital case study. I would have found Operations MUCH more interesting.)

I've never had the experience of not having to order in America, but the way DiFara's is totally focused on pizza artistry and almost completely indifferent to customers comes close. The way people go on pilgrimages to Magnolia Bakery to worship at the shrine of the cupcake is pretty similar, too.

Anyway, the end result of all this food-related musing is that now I'm trying to figure out what one-food restaraunt I'd like to open. Think about it -- quitting your job to learn how to make meat pies, or french fries, or iced coffee, or whatever it is better than anyone else in your hometown, to the point where people take their friends to your shop to appreciate your genius. It's kind of appealing, isn't it? I think I'm going to make this my new small-talk-starter hypothetical, and bench "If you were a Major League Baseball player, what song would they play as you came up to the plate?" I know Sheldon's answer, and I think Megan could revolutionize morning to-go food by opening New York's first bacon stand. The obvious answer for me is cupcakes, but that niche is already taken in NY, DC, and San Francisco. Maybe Thanksgiving sandwiches? This is going to take some musing.