Showing posts with label food and drink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food and drink. Show all posts

Monday, May 23, 2022

Partial List of Best Last Meals

Perhaps which one you choose says a lot about you. Perhaps what I list and the order I choose says a lot about me. 

I leave it up to the reader to consider why it is your last meal; be it choice (yours or someone else's) or unexpected circumstance.





Saturday, July 31, 2021

The Reopening - The View from Hawaii



Earlier this month my family and I spent a week in Maui. In case you haven't heard, it is really, really beautiful--a great vacation spot. Hot take, I know. Here are some observations:

  • Two underappreciated qualities that give Hawaii its magical appeal are the remoteness in distance and time. You can go to lots of amazing islands in this world, but almost none are as physically remote as Hawaii. Related to this but not necessarily following except for the particular way our world is populated is the fact that it is very temporally remote. The rest of the world is asleep or done with their day when yours on the island is starting. This forces one to shrink their world down to a few mountains in the vast ocean abyss.
  • The reopening from the perspective of Hawaii is perhaps unsurprisingly behind what I've otherwise experienced. Anecdotally this was supported by other travelers who came from places more locked down than Oklahoma such as New York and California. They too were surprised by the policy phase Hawaii was still in.
  • Related to this was the part that both caused anxiety for me in preparing for the trip and frustration for me in navigating the travel. This is the Hawaiistan aspects whereby it was as if I were travelling to a third-world country. At the time when we were there (this policy was recently relaxed) the only vaccinations that were meaningful were those given on the island. The same shot from Pfizer, et al. given in another U.S. state gave no privilege--every entrant had to get the same COVID test done before arriving and not more than 72 hours before arrival. Testing in a pandemic is critical, but the various rules laid out for Hawaii, which I won't bother to fully go into here as others have covered this, and the way they were implemented had more to do with health theater and signaling than they did with science.
  • This should probably not be a surprise given that the Maui mayor thought it helpful/necessary to beg airlines to bring fewer tourists to the island. I guess that's how they solve for the equilibria in banana republics.
  • Speaking of banana republics and their policies, Hawaii generally and Maui specifically suffers from two self-imposed penalties--development restrictions and the Jones Act. 
    • On development - I understand that there is a bootleggers (resorts, others in the tourist industry, and current homeowners/developers) and Baptists (current residents who in many cases are self-described natives and who don't want things to change) story going on. I'm not sure everyone close to this issue does understand that. I am sensitive to the good, bad, and sometimes ugly history of how Hawaii is now a U.S. state. Blanket restrictions on and impediments to development imposed by government are not the solution. They are economically harmful making Hawaii poorer than it would otherwise be, which of course harms the poor the most. They are also culturally destructive creating a hostile environment of us versus them as opposed to a constructive environment of negotiated compromise and agreement. Finally they are morally repugnant when they allow the politically powerful to violate property rights.
    • On the Jones Act - this is "self-imposed" in that Hawaii is a U.S. state and this is a U.S. federal government policy. Hawaii itself is not responsible for it. However, why isn't the Hawaiian delegation to Washington and Hawaiians as a politically lobby effort not storming the Capitol on this one (figuratively speaking, of course)? 
  • Enough griping. Hawaii is awesome. The people I encountered (Hawaiians and tourists alike) were delightful. Aloha is not just a slogan. It is a warm and wonderful way of life that is embraced and practiced everywhere you go. I felt welcomed and appreciated in Hawaii by virtually every person I had the pleasure of engaging with.
A few recommendations:
  • Do some homework before travelling to decide how much of an activity vacation you want (there is plenty to do) and how much of a relaxation vacation you want (it is easy to not have enough as it takes time to drive, boat, walk to various destinations, everyone moves a bit slower than you might expect, and at every turn there is a siren call to spend more time).
  • Because of the odd time zone Hawaii has been placed in (it "should" be a hour or two earlier there when compared to most places) and because of the typical jetlag for U.S. travelers, Hawaii wakes up early and you will too. So it follows that it turns in for the evening before you probably expect. Just chalk it up to following Ben Franklin's advice and hope that it adds some wisdom to your life.
  • We stayed in Wailea on the southwestern shore. You can't probably go wrong between this area and the rival northwestern shore, but I do think it is easier to traverse from the SW part of the island. 
  • We stayed at The Fairmont, which is highly recommended provided you want a resort experience and a resort bill at the end.
  • The Road to Hana is highly demanding but can be highly rewarding. Planning here is key. There are good apps to guide your journey. You won't get it all in--the more you stop, the less distance you'll get. We actually went the entire loop around the "dangerous" undeveloped part of the island. It was truly treacherous at times but still doable for a minivan. Not sure if I'd recommend it as opposed to reversing course to head back home. But doing so wouldn't have saved us any time since I wanted to make it to the half-way point of The Pools at 'Ohe'o
  • From a prior trip, I can highly recommend biking down Haleakalā. 
  • Maui Pineapple Tour was very interesting and fun. I've never seen Dole's operation, but I image it to be on the other end of the production frontier--Maui Gold is charmingly but surprisingly a trip back to farming circa 1950.
  • Iao Needle state park is underappreciated. For the intrepid, consider disobeying the signs and hiking the prohibited trails. It is an awesome scenic adventure. 
  • Unfortunately I didn't get to try the many famous and/or recommended dining spots that are still on my Want To Go list. The two at the hotel,  and Nick's Fishmarket, were very good but . . . did I mention resort prices? The labor shortages were most acutely seen here as perhaps only 1/3rd of Ko was open and service in general throughout the island was poor.
  • For the price of airfare (explicit cost, time in the air, and jetlag effects) plan to stay in Hawaii for as long as possible--at least one week. There is always more to do including doing nothing.

Aloha!


Saturday, June 12, 2021

The Reopening - The View from Las Vegas


As a reward to myself for blogging every day in May, I travelled to the place that is at the same time the most and the least American city, Las Vegas. It had been over two years since my last trip there, Super Bowl 2019. Some observations:
  • It is largely unchanged at first appearance. The casinos are packed. Restaurants are hard to get into. Crowds are abundant.
  • A studious observer will notice that even though casino open tables are full with high minimums, there are numerous ones, banks in fact, that are unopened. My guess as to the primary cause for this would be the labor shortage with depressed actual or forecasted demand as a secondary contributor. 
  • Speaking of the labor shortage, the struggle is real. I can support Scott Sumner's prediction and observation that labor supply is low and as a result service is poor. Let's be clear, everyone I encountered from a service perspective (waitstaff, front desk, concierge, retail clerks, etc.) did a great, friendly job. But service is SLOW. Restaurant wait times are crazy (more on this in the business thought below) and reservations are required--we almost had to slum it one night at Shake Shack but fortunately got into Din Tai Fung (more on where I ate far below). There are empty tables at "full" restaurants--not a strategically spaced COVID thing. Some have yet to open. Calls to concierge and guest services had very long waits on hold. And note this: those enormous signs out front on the strip, very valuable advertising real estate, had in their rotation help wanted ads among show previews, featured restaurants, and "...the loosest slots on the strip...". 
  • One of the reasons I went and took the whole family (more on this in the culture thought below) was to see the shows. Sadly, I was a bit early in my winter planning for this trip as the primary show draw for us, Cirque du Soleil, is not ready to open yet. This makes sense as it takes time to get the band back together so to speak. 
  • Masks were sparsely seen among the patrons. Probably 10% wearing them at most. Various staff is more like 75%. This was different at the poker tables as only about 20% of dealers wore them, but also about 20% of players. For the players I think this was a combination of a desire to use masks strategically as well as California CDS (just anecdotal but supported by several examples--young poker players from California and elsewhere were masking even though they admitted they were vaccinated). 
Feel free to file several of the above under either or both 'lockdowns have long-term consequences' or 'pandemics have long-term consequences'.

Two more thoughts: one on culture and one on business.
  1. People have always asked me when I tell them I'm taking my kids to Vegas "What is there for kids?". The answer is lots, but it is deeper than that for me. The world is for all of us. I don't subscribe to the idea that we should shelter kids in incubation chambers until they are ready for the real world. The real world gets them ready for the real world. Yes there are obvious limits. Yet this isn't simply a disagreement about a matter of degree. I think there are hard and soft lines between what a kid should and shouldn't be exposed to. People including if not especially kids are antifragile. We walked in the heat (108) as well as in the air conditioned resorts. We saw the beautiful people among the beautiful gardens of Bellagio as well as the desperately troubled on the decidedly rough sidewalks. Of course we did not attend a strip club. At the same time I did not hide their eyes at the scantily clad girls (and guys) selling groupie photo ops. Piff the Magic Dragon's show was excellent with the adult language that is not generally my 9-year-old daughter's vocabulary. I think my kids saw repeated great examples from me and my group and many others we encountered that a Las Vegas experience can be great fun while still being responsibly and reasonably behaved and coexisting with bad, excessive, undesired behavior all with the attendant consequences.
  2. As mentioned above, there were long wait times for restaurants among other things. Some of this is a temporary phenomenon that will abate as the reopening completes. Yet some of it is an enduring problem. First some history: In the mid 1970s William Bennett and William Pennington began transforming Las Vegas by developing a more family-friendly environment and a more expanded idea on what the Vegas bundle should include. Add to this the innovations Steve Wynn developed. Gradually the idea that Vegas should be stingy rooms, cheap food, limited shows, and free drinks all with the desire to get gamblers gambling gave way to the idea that these other areas could be profit centers themselves and of greatly higher quality and variety. Then came the metric revolution advanced greatly by Harrah's so that the casinos could understand their customers better tailoring the experience more individually (profit maximizing price discrimination). For a long time I yearned for the casinos to recognize and reward me for not just my gaming but also for all the other revenue I was bringing with me (hotel room, restaurant spending, show attendance, etc.). Slowly this has finally been happening to where on this past trip almost all my high-end food spending is credited to my value as a customer. But there are still unclaimed chips laying on the casino floor. The OG business model dies hard. Our room at Aria was very nice, but still lacked some basic desires. I would have liked and used a minifridge that was not stocked with high-priced items with a hair-trigger system ready to charge me for an inadvertent nudging. Keep that there, but give me another one that is empty--maybe at an upcharge. How about a coffee maker or Nespresso in the room? Presumably the casino is thinking they want me out of that room on the casino floor or at the pool ordering drinks or in a restaurant. However, keep in mind they definitely do offer room service. More to the point think about the tradeoff. Instead of popping a K-cup right out of bed, I went downstairs to Starbucks in the Promenade waiting over 30 minutes in line. The wait outside the popular Salt & Ivy for brunch was >1 hour. This is not productive time for the hotel/casino. People who were not waiting right outside the restaurant looking at their phones instead were walking away to find another place probably in another property. Waiting on queue is a dead-weight loss in need of a creative, profitable solution.
Finally, here are the places where we ate with all being recommendable:

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Where to Eat When Traveling

Summer travel season is quickly approaching. And this one promises to be crazy. On the supply side places are figuring out reopening on the fly in a rapidly changing environment and dealing with temporary shortages (in the common rather than economic sense). It may develop into an economic shortage if prices are not allowed to adjust, which I suspect will happen in many instances.

On the demand side personal balance sheets have never been so flush with cash. Combine that with the pent-up demand from a year without travel, and you have a recipe for a surge in customers. 

The list below is not time sensitive to this upcoming season. I want it to be evergreen, but hopefully it is additionally helpful for the vacation chaos of 2021.

Subject to revision, here is my advice list:
  1. Eat the local cuisine - Back in grad school I was on a summer study abroad in the south of France--I learned a lot and 90% was not in the classroom. There were several lessons learned in food. One was Pizza Hut and McDonald's (royale with cheese aside) is the same the world over. Another was Tex-Mex in Toulouse is about as silly as that sounds--I don't think this would have been different had I not been from Tex-Mex country. 
  2. Eat where locals (not tourists) are lining up - This helps you avoid the "world famous" place that is resting on its laurels. 
  3. Dine where you will be comfortable - There is a lot to be said for challenging one's comfort zone. However, don't get so far out of your comfort zone that you can't relax and enjoy it. This includes go where your attire will fit in reasonably well and where your group will fit in. Got your kids with you? Then you're skipping passed Chez Paul. And keep in mind that truly kid-friendly places don't have to advertise that they are kid friendly.
  4. Choose quantity of places over quantity of servings - When possible, choose two places over one for dinner and breakfast, perhaps three places over two or one for lunch.  Order smaller portions to accommodate. Diversification is a good strategy in more things than investing. For example, pick up coffee and a pastry early and then have or share an egg dish or waffles in an hour at another place. Don't worry about clearing your plate. That is a bad policy in general any way. 
  5. Allow spontaneity / don't over plan - Reservations are necessary sometimes, and a rough outline plan is usually rewarding. Still many mistakes are made when adherence to a plan is strictly enforced. In battle no plan survives first contact with the enemy. In travel no dinner reservation survives the next bend in the road. Many a meal has been thwarted because of an unexpected photo op, "five more minutes at the craps table", a "quick last ride" on It's A Small, Small World, a shortcut through the park, etc. Also, that celebrity who is imminently about to leave the Plaza snuck out through the back door an hour ago. Go meet your friends for dinner.
  6. Know your budget, allow some excess, stick to it - You're on vacation, dammit! And you want to take another sometime soon as well. Indulgence does not imply bankruptcy (read that both ways--an excuse and a warning). 
  7. Use the small/medium/large/small ratio (related to #6) - You can only eat so much the same as you can only spend so much. The law of diminishing returns applies. Don't follow a calorie indulgence with another one. Space it out and pace yourself. You cannot see all of Europe in one trip. Likewise you cannot eat all of Europe in one trip.
  8. [updated to add] Choose off hours - Places don't typically loose their magic when they aren't at peak capacity. Often they gain. This is not the case for places where the ambiance or surrounding entertainment is part of the experience, but that is about the show and not just the food. The last time I was in Vegas our group wisely choose not to go to Hash House A Go Go during the brunch rush (two-hour wait!) and instead went there around 6 pm getting right in. People are right to flock to that place. They are foolish to be so conventional thinking pancakes only work between 8-11 in the morning.

I'm not sure how much, but Tyler Cowen deserves a hat tip for certainly some of the above list.

This picture both supports and contradicts some of my list:



Thursday, October 8, 2020

The Forrest Gump Diet: A few simple rules for a better diet

Most dieting plans are nonsense. And most dieting is not about losing weight--it is about signaling that one would like to lose weight, is involved in a struggle, and would like sympathy. If people really wanted to lose weight, they would

Diets come in a thousand varieties, but it is clear that while each might work for a while for some people, they fail (or people fail them) as often as they work. That we know so very little about this highly desired realm of knowledge, it is a big economic paradox. My guess is that it is highly dependent on individual circumstances (extreme heterogeneity) and these are both governed by external environmental factors including cultural influences as well as genetic factors. As such, one size fits more than one might not be true. And yet I do think some guiding principles can be derived that can greatly help us on our journey:

  1. Eat when you are hungry. (Note that this pushes back against intermittent fasting.) 
  2. Eat slower. You are not in a speed contest. 
  3. Eat less. You are not in a volume contest. This can most easily be achieved by simply not ever completely finishing what you have been served.
  4. Eat less of the things that you want to eat. It is very likely that your desire is to eat more of the things that are not as good for you.
  5. Eat more of the things that are not as desirable to you. This is the converse of the prior point.
  6. Eat a greater variety. This likely helps with the gut microbiome, and it makes life more interesting. That said, some things may just not be right for your body, and that is fine.
  7. Eat less processed foods and prepackaged foods. This one helps with #s 2, 3, and 4 by making food less convenient especially food that is generally nutritionally poorer for you.
  8. Look to make good choices at the margin, but diet over weeks and months not hours and days. No one ever starved to death by missing a single meal, and no one ever became obese by indulging oneself one time. 
    • The first key is to avoid temptation by avoiding bad situations. 
    • The second key is to routinely seek to make a slightly better choice at each opportunity. 
    • The final key is to be able to look back over weeks and months to see if you have generally been making good choices and improving choices. While this might entail the need to keep a journal, which is contrary to the spirit of this list of keeping things simple, evaluations over longer periods of time are essential to understanding if you’re making progress.

P.S. This is the diet that worked for me. I lost 20 pounds and it definitely improved some aspects of my health. Had I wanted to lose another 20 pounds, I would more devoutly follow it, but I want other things in life more. At least I'm honest with myself.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Highly Linkable - Food and Health Myths

As you know, one of my soft spots is counter-conventional wisdom. Here are a few recent ones in the health and nutrition and food spaces.

From Vox, the science is in: exercise won’t help you lose much weight. Count this (that exercise helps weight loss) among the many things I adamantly believed up until few years ago.

In this James Altucher podcast Dr. Aaron Carroll explores some of his book The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully. Quit looking for magic food. Quit worrying about toxic food. Eat what works for you. Stay away from processed foods and too much (i.e., added) sugar.

Slate explores the implications of the junk science used to ban smoking on grounds of secondhand dangers. I believe we are in an age of rising puritanism. Tobacco is the drug in the cross hairs. It is low brow. Interestingly alcohol and marijuana are higher and rising status. Once again, mood affiliation and out-group shaming guides public policy. (HT: Robin Hanson)

On a more upbeat note, here is a great guide to finding a restaurant. Lots here about correctly interpreting the signals being given--both intentional and unintentional. (HT: Tyler Cowen)

Sunday, April 30, 2017

I'll Have What She's Having

This email from Marco Bresba to Tyler Cowen on food versus music as social status signature really resonated with me.

I have always been out of step with music culture. Growing up I was 1-2 decades behind my peers enjoying music from my parent's generation and the 1/2 generation between us. Because I never liked kid's music, though, I was an outsider in kindergarten (listening to adult music) and then an outsider in junior high and high school for the same reason. My horizons have very much broadened in the past two decades and I have friends, lovers, and (mostly) the Internet to thank for that.

People think of me as a foodie, a title I cringe at a bit when assigned to me. I am definitely 1+ standard deviations to the right on food knowledge, experience, and willingness. But at the same time, I know what I don't know and don't do.

My relationship with food and my fellow man is a perfect microcosm for how I see most issues. I agree with no one. On the one hand I try to hold back a knee-jerk, mocking disdain for those to the left of me on the distribution (to abuse that analogy a bit more). The complacency (and that is the perfect methaphor) aggravates my less-charitable self. Eventually I come around to my higher principles--de gustibus non est disputandum--and I seek to accept their mockery of my choices leaving an open door to help guide them along the journey should they choose enlightenment. And yes, I am being sarcastic about my arrived status because . . .

On the other hand I have a hard time hiding my inner-eye roll at those reaching mightily for ultimate food nirvana. My knee-jerk reaction to those demonstrating their fringe and elite status is to assume it is not genuine. I keep waiting for them to rediscover the hot dog, but only concede that it is a desired food once deconstructed from a food truck or simply for the sake of irony. This extreme is its own version of complacency. Rather than make choices for themselves, we have a group looking to peers for the next best (and approved) thing.

This is me at any dinner party. I am either the most avant-garde among a group of conventional wisdom followers (whose motto might be "Choose Sliced Bread, the best thing from here on out!) or I am the most conventional (small-c conservative) among a group of would-be trend setters. Like I say, my food tastes are a microcosm. For once conversation starts I will find myself uneasily choosing how much to politely disagree and hoping the others will appreciate that true respect comes not from acquiescence but from honest/divergent/challenging discussion.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Highly Linkable

First of all, it is settled--I will be inviting Alton to my Super Bowl party next year.

But I'm not inviting Adam because he ruins everything--in this case debunking 13 things that aren't true.

Carol Anne, they're out there.

Speaking of scary things, the news isn't so calming. I find Bryan Caplan's advice to be a sound counter to the tide of common opinion. 

The most I'll allow myself to speculate is that the supposed momentum issue in today's politics of a desire to look inwardly to protect what we have and regain what we've lost will be soon enough revealed as a chimera based on delusion. As Scott Sumner says, absolute poverty dwarfs relative discomfort as a material issue. (BTW, thanks again to Scott for his time in OKC and his nice comments at the bottom of that post).

If you want evidence of how phony the President's argument is and the unlikelihood of lasting "reforms" brought by his administration, look to this illustration of just one widget's journey through a supply chain that spans all of the NAFTA countries. (hat tip: David Henderson)

Alas, fear of Trump ruination continues to grip many. I recommend more advice from Bryan Caplan--embrace limited government!

Trump's own ruination appears more likely to me. I am just surprised by how fast it seems to be developing (perhaps this is wishful thinking). In fact I fear it will all be but wishful thinking that meaningful, good reforms will come from this Republican government. Perhaps Congress will be compelled to tell The Donald "You're Fired!" in short order and a President Pence can then be the signator to healthcare reform, corporate tax reform, and perhaps even major tax reform that can be bundled with climate change (externality) reform. It is amazing how simple and achievable these solutions can be--and accessible when presented by John Cochrane.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Wine: It's More Like Art Than Real Estate

I just returned from Sonoma--so I'm an expert on all things wine for the next month or so.

One could really get used to a life out there: beautiful weather, wonderful entertainment and dining options, friendly and interesting people. What was it that Kurt Vonnegat didn't actually say? "Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel."

As we all know, not all wine is created equal and price is NOT the way to tell the difference.

I was enjoying our first tour and tasting at Far Niente when it fermented in my mind how people tend to not understand how to think about wine. The wines at Far Niente are superb . . . in my opinion. Fortunately, I don't find them so superb that it spoils less expensive wine for me. I can appreciate both the difference and that it is a difference rather than a superiority.

Many people don't understand this. They want to think about it linearly: good to bad = expensive to cheap. But wine is not something so simply categorized. The evaluation is multidimensional. Comparing wine is not as simple as comparing soft drinks. Soft drinks are much more a commodity (both in supply as well as demand). There are taste preferences, but the taste dimension has much tighter bounds in soft drinks than with wine.

Doesn't price correlate with quality, you ask. Yes, but quality is in the eye of the beholder. People want wine to be like real estate where quality tends to be relatively linear in definition. Larger dominates smaller. Most people tend to agree most of the time on location preferences. Elaborate dominates simplistic. And so on. There is of course a lot of room for personal taste differences in real estate. It is just that these are muted relative to the linear factors.

Instead of real estate consider wine to be like art. Here there are vast differences in personal taste and these tend to be overwhelming. It is a lucky man who can get as much joy out of his child's painting as he can a Picasso. I look at wine the same way. Our very sophisticated yet down-to-earth guide at Far Niente is perhaps cursed with a high appreciation for fine wine.

Adapting the analogy to hit closer to home, consider the differences in football appreciation. For some only the NFL will do. For others watching the same college team when good and even when not so good is the top preference. Still for others even any small college game gets the job done. Is devotedly liking OU or Texas or Alabama superior to having the same devotion to Kansas or Tulane or Indiana? Of course not. Sitting in premium seats to watch OU beat Texas is consuming an altogether different product as compared to casually watching from home or listening on the radio while you work on your car. It is essentially a coincidence that these three things involve the same sporting event facts and outcome. My meal at Bouchon and your meal at McDonald's share only the coincidence that both involved digestion.

There is one other aspect to consider when it comes to the price of wine: namely, budget constraints matter. One factor that determines consumer responsiveness to price changes (the technical term is elasticity) is how much of a consumer's wealth the price represents. Pencils are a classic example as they are usually so cheap that a large increase in price does not cause a large decrease in the amount purchased (price inelastic). Wine is not an inelastic good for me. So to ask if a bottle that is 10x the price of another is 10x as satisfying is relevant to me. But it is not relevant for a billionaire. So understand that the price dynamics in part of the wine (and art and sports attendance) market is simply not relevant to many of us.

PS. Here are some pictures from my trip. Random thought: How less popular would wine be if it were produced in less amazing places?