Random Thoughts Week.

The Lefsetz Letter, a highly readable blog about the music industry, often covers a variety of topics in one post.  The ephemera of ideas and thoughts that don't make one single post.  This week, it's one of those for me.  No new place to write about, but just some thoughts on eating, drinking and going out...

1) Your steak may look over done in this light. Our server told us this in the Keg in Yaletown, Vancouver.  I've never heard this before, but she was telling me to check the taste before sending any steak back.  The evening light made everything look darker.  The steak, a medium rare, Chicago-style New York steak tasted great.  I didn't notice it not looking pink enough in the middle.  Though the warning made sense, it also worried me that I was about to get a bad slice of meat.  I didn't, as ever the keg delivered its consistent level of good food.  Good but not stunning.

2) Outdoor tomatoes taste better.  Eating outside in the sun makes things taste different.  It might be the air, or the wind, or the smell of the woods and sea, but somehow, a juicy tomato on a picnic bench in Sidney is far better experience than one eaten at my dining room table.  Even if I have all the windows open.  Maybe it is the juice dribbling down my chin, or the paper napkins. Rather than the metallic knife and fork, and the clean china plate.  But the simplest foods taste better outside.

3) Open Markets everywhere.  This Canada Day in Victoria seemed to be dominated by the markets.  Celebrate the anniversary of the country by spending money of maple smoked salt, printed t-shirts and sugar-lollipops.  The mix of what feels like mass-produced "hand crafts" and expensive real originals looks identical across the island.  In Salts Spring Saturday market, Moss Street or Duncan, it's the same. Not the same vendors, but the same over all whole.

There is not that certain original feel to these venues.  Here's the hippy selling bunches of Kale, there's the home mixed spices and over in that corner is the pottery mugs... that might have been made in china before being hand stencilled in a barn just of the Pat Bay highway.  Thing is, wandering around one is enjoyable, as you might find something you like, or pick up a restock of something you got before, or find the perfect curry paste. But when you've seen four in five days you realize the formula is the same, and is is not necessary to go to a fifth tomorrow.

4) Making a good restaurant. I have no idea of all the formula to make a great place to eat or drink out.  But I think part of it is that the experience counts as much as the food.  The way the staff treat you, the seats, the decor, the sounds.  And this has to come from the management, or the experience you got one week will be different the next.  And that can lead to disappointment.  Which leads to telling your friends about how it was -quite- as good this time.

You want an experience you can share with friends and family.  One's who were there at the same time... and people who weren't.  Telling people about a great night out is satisfying.  People want to share new experiences, and hopefully get validation back from them that they too had a great time when they went there.  Getting the thanks for recommending a spot adds to the general good feelings about a place, reliving the original experience, which pays of for repeat visits.  You want to recapture that night, that meal, that joke.  Sometimes you do, sometimes it's even better, or just as good but different.

Those places stay in your mind and keep paying back after the credit card bill is paid. That makes a good restaurant or bar or just place.  That's what sells to me.  Until it fades and a new shiny bauble comes along to entertain us.

But the new and the old can run along side each other. Keep looking, and keep coming back.