Ridgewood, NJ, continues its tradition of turning over restaurants.

Here are my mostly uninformed and casual observations:

This year's Easter dinner brought about the revelation that my oftentimes-ball-busting sister-in-law reads this blog, and didn't know it was me behind the magic.  When I asked what she thought about it, she said "Well, there are too many posts on burgers."

So how 'bouts another post on burgers.  Whaddaya say, hmmm?

I ordered myself a glass of (red) Zinfandel from Renwood to go with my burger.  It was a modest pour at the modest price of 7 dollars, and in a decent glass.

Server: How is the [red] wine?

Me: [Elated] Very good.  And it's chilled.  That's wonderful!

S: That's the only red wine we chill.

M: [Perplexed, but not necessarily surprised] Why don't you chill all of them?

S: Red wine isn't supposed to be chilled.

M: [Defeated already and knowing it]: Sure it is.

S: [Adamant] No it's not.

M: [Requesting logical explanation] Why do you chill this (red) one then?

S: [Not providing, to my mind, logical explanation] Because that's the only one that's required to be chilled.

I'm not sure at what temperature the Federal Grill is serving their non-Zinfandel reds, and I'm not interested in finding out.  I'll stick to the Zin.

As I always try to stress, it's my opinion that a lack of wine education isn't the fault of young servers, but rather it's a management/training issue.   In the case of Federal Grill, they actually do have a wine education program for their servers, and the servers taste and discuss all of their wines.  I think that's fantastic, and more restaurants should take their lead.  Hell, there's no doubt in my mind that this young server knows more about wine and food than I did at her age, and I bet a lot of that has to do with the fine job that the management is doing with this program. 

BUT, and here's the rub, red wine isn't meant to be served warm or room temperature, and the fact of the matter is that it always tastes better somewhere in the 60's...preferably the low 60's.  Wine that is too cold will lose all nuance and nose (and taste).  Red wine served at "room temperature" (in my house that's about 71 degrees) tends to be too "hot" (a blast of alcohol in the nose) and just not all that pleasant to drink in general.  The reality is that restaurants serve, and people drink, white wine much too cold and red wine much too warm.  I'm guessing the three top reasons for this are 1) ignorance, 2) cost, and 3) cost.

Methinks that this concept is lost not only on the general public, but on people in the wine industry as well.  So, it might take some time for everyone to come around.  I'll wait (I gots no choice).  Until then I'll continue to order reds with a bucket of ice while attempting to change the world one server and one restaurant at a time.

On to the burger...

There are three types of steakhouses that aren't Peter Luger:
1) steakhouses that don't try to emulate Peter Luger
2) steakhouses that subtly try to emulate Peter Luger
3) steakhouse that attempt to exactly duplicate the menu and food of Peter Luger

My preference is for the latter two.  But for now I'm going to focus on the third.