2011 San Pellegrino world top restaurant ranking

See here the top 1-50. And I am proud to note that I have tried by now 4 places in the 2011 world top 12, namely:

• Noma (1): been there twice already, see here impressions (and some pictures) from the first time, the second was a lunch in October last year-- still have to get hold of those pictures online somewhere. Vale?
• Alinea (6): been there exactly a month ago, details yet to come.
• Per Se (10): visited for lunch during a brief but intense visit to NYC in November 2010, promised I would write impressions soon. I liked it more than Alinea, for starters...
• Les Créations de Narisawa (12): end 2009, there is a whole saga behind this. This is also the one place that I believe still has a lot of growing chances. Can only go up in the world rankings, looking forward to seeing that materialize.

Remark as well that Noma, Alinea and Narisawa are respectively the 2011 top restaurants on the three continents I know (to a little extent) so far. 

Work in progress

In the quest for the epiphany, I am happy to report reaching the lesser, though nonetheless revealing, epistrophy stage. Credits due to Thelonius Monk --and a (was it 2006?) François Villard Condrieu De Poncins quaffed yesterday at Alinea.

Chicago Michelin Stars: The Unfinished Business

While the preamble looked rather promising, the Chicago Michelin stars seem to have been awarded in a hurry (in fact: the results were already out yesterday, a day before expected) and the upshot is at best sloppy... Do not get me wrong, many places on this list were expected to be there. If you look at my forecast in the earlier blogpost, I actually predicted correctly 10 of the 23 places eventually awarded stars, while nominating only 5 eateries that eventually failed to get at least one Michelin star. Moreover, among the places I foresaw as "obvious" choices, I had only one that was not rewarded with at least one star. And therein lies precisely the biggest problem with the selection of the Michelin undercover inspectors (who, no doubt, work hard, but my feeling is they worked less hard than their NYC counterparts-- 9th bullet point).

But to the point: I fail to understand how a place like Moto did not get at least one star. While my in depth review of that place (with inter alia, photos of most of my 20 grand course tasting dinner menu) will follow at some point, it should suffice to say that in my view that place ought to be higher ranked than (the otherwise impressive) Michael Mina's in San Francisco, which is a 2-star Michelin, or so it was when I checked it out, as now it appears to have been kicked out of the San Francisco Michelin starred list.... And while the variance in quality among the dishes in that 20 grand course was indeed higher than at Noma's (but then again, I leave it up to you to name a place where that assessment would not be true today, when Rene Redzepi simply rules above all: the fact that Noma still has only 2 Michelin stars might be the very proof of Michelin continuing with... well, slightly different standards), quality was still superior to that of most places I have tried earlier, plus the food was extremely-- I do actually mean extremely-- daring and creative. But I guess these are features that American-trained Michelin inspectors failed to notice? Anyhow, to add to potential mishaps, L2O (disclaimer: did not try it yet, some of my sources loved it, but others did not find anything special to it despite several trials) managed to collect the 3 stars grand prix (I thought of them more of a potential 1 star candidate), and that despite their top chef recently leaving them, action which is normally associated in the Michelin world with losing one or even more stars. Mais enfin, obviously I have now placed L2O very high on my priority list, so that I check it out for myself: I'll report then back to you on this :-).

The other huge problem, already anticipated in the earlier post on the Michelin-in-Chicago, is that places like Avec and Sweets and Savories failed to be recognized even in the Bib Gourmand category (with particularly Avec a no-nonsense candidate even for 1 star). Avec is by all means one of the best eateries in this city, while Sweets and Savories is in my view the best quality-price ratio I have tried as yet (better than The Girl and The Goat, or Hopleaf, or the other Chicago Bib Gourmands I have tried to date, as to that particular dimension). While I did not necessarily think these two places should be within the starred Michelin category, failing to recognize them even in the Bib Gourmand (while, truth be told, adding some places among the 46 in that category that some of my gourmand sources find at least odd...) raises big question marks.

All in all, too many 3- and 2- Michelin stars among the recognized eateries, missing at least one potential 1- or 2- star place, and further ignoring at least two noteworthy Bib Gourmand restaurants. That is bad enough, even for a very first assessment of the Chicago culinary scene.



Update: Jean-Luc Naret on the Chicago Michelin stars. Some things above find an explanation (the ranking was finalized already in September; Avec has been closed for a great while; Laurent Gras might return?) but I am not satisfied.

Chicago Michelin Preamble: The Bib Gourmands

The starred restaurants will be known only in two days, but meanwhile here is the Bib Gourmand list (via Fred, who's actively tweeting lately): Michelin's 46 Chicago places that will give you plenty of bang for your buck. I have tried already six very nice places from this list (and have had about another dozen on my priority to-check-out list); time permitting, I will be at some point back with detailed impressions. Meanwhile, here they are, in (weakly) descending order of my current (overall: food quality, ambiance, location) preference-- highly recommended!

• The Girl and The Goat (been there twice; see blurry photo capturing happy diners Seb, Veronica, Eva, and Rob, with chef Stephanie Izard in the centre)
• Perennial
• Riccardo Trattoria (twice)
• Hopleaf (several times)
• Mixteco Grill
• The Purple Pig

I further think they are missing at least two important restaurants in the Bib Gourmand set, unless they actually plan to reward them with a Michelin star, which would not be that surprising: Sweets and Savories, and respectively Avec, both of which have a similar position as The Girl and The Goat in my ranking. 

As for the Chicago Michelin stars, my bets are the following. First, my obvious choices: Alinea (my top ranked must-try-place in Chicago; number 7 in the 2010 San Pellegrino top 100-- and the only Chicago eatery in there!-- must translate in two or three stars); Moto (had a fabulous dinner there, just second to my two experiences at Copenhagen's one and only Noma, on par with my very recent experience at NYC's exquisite Per Se or Tokyo's unforgettable Les Creations de Narisawa, and-- I would venture to say-- superior to my otherwise superb dinner at San Francisco's Michael Mina); Spiaggia (best Italian I've tried as yet: must be starred). Other obvious favourites for one or more stars (all on my still-have-to-try Chicago list): Charlie Trotter's, Tru, Topolobampo, Blackbird; finally, some further potential candidates, particularly for 1 star: Schwa, L2O, Takashi, Northpond, Sprout, Sepia, Michael, Les Nomades (plus, as stated above, places that impressed me earlier like Avec and Sweets and Savories, which do not appear in the Bib Gourmand set). Stay tuned, less than two days left!

Transylvania, Scania, Jutland

I have just arrived in Kolding (remember Kolding in winter time? It is even more beautiful now) for a workshop tomorrow, after a short wedding detour to Helsingborg, which looks and feels way more exciting than seen from Hamlet's side of the Øresund (or Öresund, if you fancy Swedish more than Danish). This, in turn, followed some busy days in Cluj --Transylvanian citadel unable to compete landscape-wise with Scandinavian harbours & fjords, but managing instead several decent cafés/wine bars/beer gardens that start to look capable of rewarding one's hard days' nights. At the cost of detail, I'll spare your waiting and tell you upfront that Café Bulgakov won the hard-fought contest, both in terms of atmosphere and food quality (dramatic improvement since a few years ago); where, obviously, '"I'm judge and jury and executioner too'"... If they worked on expanding the selection of Belgian beers--beyond the lovely, but lonely, Leffe--and considered polishing their wine list, I would see them as top contender for the Transylvanian café in Cluj.

PS. I know you are anxiously waiting for my Shanghai impressions. And for my Boston foodies recommendations. And for details of my half-hour NCN (=Napoca Cable Network) live interview in their "Cluj zi de zi" rubric, a couple of days ago. Soon.

Montreal, SED, and Pulp(o) Fiction

To start with the last item in the title, it wasn't to be for The Netherlands... a third World Cup final wasted. Mais, c'est la vie. However, even though I predicted wrongly the winner in the very last game, I still managed to eventually rank 411th among 497,206 participants worldwide, in the Castrol's FIFA World Cup Predictor Challenge. This simply states that 99,99% of success in such a football prediction competition can be ensured by good use of basic statistics plus priors updating after each game :-). The remaining unexplained part is the sole domain of Octopus (Pulpo) Paul, who can now retire in full glory.

The Society for Economic Dynamics Annual Meeting 2010. The SED Annual Meeting is by far the best conference (NB: this does not include more specialized workshops) I have ever participated in (this being my second time, after the SED 2008 at MIT): the average quality of the papers presented is high, while, crucially, there is no extreme quality variance (as, unfortunately, some European conferences tend to exhibit over and over, though you'd think they've had enough feedback on that by now). Excellent invited talks, some quite inspiring, by Bob Hall, Susan Athey (no slides online, but she surely was-- seems to me she always is-- the best orator), and Ellen McGrattan. Moreover, the organizers did a terrific job, while at the same time keeping conference fees to decent levels (another problem of many European conferences). Last, but not least, if you're interested in my SED presentation, you can download the slides here (the paper is being revised at the moment, so older versions you might find online might be too old).


Briefly on Montréal: definitely a city I could live in (to the extent I've experienced it in my week there), though I still might, slightly, prefer London and Chicago over it (unconditional reasoning, obviously). In particular, the Mile End and Plateau neighborhoods are true gems, with Old Montreal my next favourite. Oh, and I've discovered I can actually manage quite well in Québécois, which is probably the most exciting Franglais around. On the minus side: it is as hot and unbearable in the summer as Chicago right now (and I understand it goes cold extreme in the winter, again just as Chicago).

To get to what I find truly amazing in Montreal (neah, despite some being surprised at this, it is not the fact that most hotels have great open-air swimming pools on their top...), that is its dining scene-- again comparable to the food scenes in Chicago or London, for instance, in both variety and quality. There wasn't a lot of time available, but I could not in any way miss Restaurant Toqué!, which for the connaisseurs I would relate to Spiaggia in Chicago (in terms of food class, locale ambiance, and service), except that it is about half as expensive (hold your horses, that is still very far from cheap; but again, in my opinion, worth every penny). In particular, the way they combined what you might think are elements that simply cannot go together, in my "Cavatelli, morceaux de foie gras et huile de truffe blanche" is something bordering on sublime (preceded by wonderfully fresh-- yes, in Montreal-- oysters). The wine list is also impressive, with plenty of choice for any taste. Wrap it all up with a classy vintage port and you will know you have to come back. Talking about wine however, my favourite place in Montreal has to be Bu; it is precisely the wine bar concept with small, high quality, dishes, to pair with great wines, which I think is missing from most other places, including all of Eastern Europe, all of Scandinavia, and so on and so forth, in fact I yet have to discover such a place in Chicago (the latest such place that amazed me was a nice wine bar with tasty "montaditos" and good Spanish wines on offer, in Sevilla, Spain, where I will have to return as soon as possible). In any case, as my Romanian friends living in Montreal, whom I had the pleasure to meet after many years in that evening at the Bu, will surely testify, a Pierre Gaillard Condrieu (2003 in this case; there are also vintages I like better) is not something you will drink every day (or, every month, year etc., depending on the person), but you will remember its taste for long thereafter; and probably it wouldn't really matter what you pair it with, though my "Ravioli frais de mozarella di bufala, pesto et tomates séchées" seemed a perfect choice. Finally, to keep the list manageable, well worth mentioning is what I'd label the best tapas place in Québec (prove me wrong!), Tapeo Bar à Tapas. While it took me some effort to organize this, we did eventually manage a great dinner for no less than 10 persons (true, starting no sooner than 10 PM, nothing unlike a Spanish tapas time...), and I had the feeling there was eventually nobody left unsatisfied. All dishes were superlative (with perfect service, accomodating extremely demanding foodies....), my weaknesses being the octopus salad (sorry, Paul), and the calamari fritti.

PS. I also promise myself never to follow fellow conference go-ers into random (red) piano bars, where all you have on offer is Heineken, Cheval Blanc, (one) bad Chianti wine(s), and ad-hoc suspect-looking-cocktails, all that plus tone deaf live singing, when you are in a city such as Montreal, and you (ought to!) know that life is too short for conscious failures.

Noma rulez!

The 2010 S. Pellegrino world top 100 restaurants came out yesterday: René Redzepi's Noma is la crème de la crème ('10 S. Pellegrino profile).

No doubt you recall I had dinner there less than a month ago. Detailed impressions to come later, time permitting; meanwhile I link to Valérie's yummy pictures from the event. Try to imagine the taste.

Also worth noting in this year's ranking

• Chicago's Alinea advances three positions, to an honourable world top 7: perfect synchronization with my arrival in town. You are allowed to wish me Bon Appetit already.
• Remaining in top thirty, at position 24, is the wonderful Les Créations de Narisawa; earlier I wrote in detail about my superlative Tokyo culinary experience.
  

PS. Thanks to Dale-- another very satisfied Noma alumnus-- for the 2010 S. Pellegrino ranking link.

High expectations

[...] We’ve been busy traveling around in the Nordic regions and we have been finding a number of simply phenomenal ingredients that we have flown into town for our use: Horse mussels, deep-sea crabs and langoustines from the Faeroe Islands, which are living right up until the moment they are served to our visitors. Halibut, wild salmon, cod and seaweed and curds from Iceland. Lamb, musk ox, berries and the purest drinking water from Greenland. In much the same fashion, we are constantly scanning for new sources of inspiration in Denmark, especially, as well as the other Nordic regions, for purposes of securing reliable sources of top-quality raw produce. This pertains both to very costly ingredients and also to ingredients of a more everyday character that we feel have come to be overlooked in the formulation of a salient Nordic approach to cooking: cereals, hulled grains and legumes, which you will come to experience here in the context of surprising preparations. [...]

The verdict on the top exponent of new Nordic culinary craft after the weekend.

Weekend econlinks: The quest for perfection

• Gelman writes a useful overview on causality and statistical learning (caveat lector: I have only read through Angrist and Pischke's book, among the three Gelman mentiones; that one is very well written, but aimed at junior graduate students at best: hence, the book's tag "an empiricist's companion" is overselling it; and that has nothing to do with Josh Angrist kindly "advising" me to change my PhD topic/focus, sometime in my beginning graduate years, because 'nobody serious would be interested in structural modelling' :-)). I guess I would position myself more within the “minority view” set, represented here by Heckman (I wouldn’t say that is really a "minority" within Economics alone, by the way), but the usefulness of these debates cannot be questionned. And an outsider's (to Economics) opinion, such as Gelman's, is always more than welcome. Related, the WSJ talks about statistical time travelling to answer interesting counterfactuals; I have a feeling I'll stick to my structural guns for now...

• An excellent article on the junior meritocracy and the perils of standardized testing at very young ages. I share most of the worries expressed therein and indeed agree that the marshmallow test would say at least as much, and probably more, than a standardized intelligence test, in the case of toddlers. My general take is that young humans have much more complex personalities than usually warranted, in ways that elude any catch-all type of tests: after all, some even fall in love at 3 years old.

• The perfect, employer-focused, resume. Uses creativity somewhat differently than its more modern counterparts; I am sure Leonardo would be the one to get all the flyouts and job offers today, as his modern CV were obviously recession-proof.

• The ubiquitous problem with such academic et al rankings (which I brought over and over, including in earlier posts and articles, particularly concerning the academic ranking obsession in Romania, where they also-- still! -- have problems understanding that a publication 'anywhere in ISI' can be total nonsense) is that they try to rank overall, ie. over all disciplines, often over (too) long periods of time etc. The only meaningful hierarchies in science are those done on specific disciplines and, even better, subdisciplines, and over shorter periods of time, thus revealing top new places etc. Then, inter alia, one would not be able to claim that biological sciences are advantaged, since there would be a within-discipline focus. I haven’t heard a single serious (but plenty of marginal) scientist(s) stressing the relevance of the rank of her/his university/institution over that of her/his department/research group. Politicians and journalists should take note, too.

• The perfect chef? That is intriguing enough: I would certainly like to know whether one can trace his whereabouts anywhere around Chicago, in the near future. And the (allegedly) perfect place for the greatest wine-- Rekondo, San Sebastian-- for the far(ther) future.

• Gastronomic sacrilège: where have all the great cheeses gone-- roquefort, camembert, brie de Meaux, Saint-Félicien, gruyère, comté, münster, pont l’évêque, cantal, reblochon, tomme de Savoie, crottin de chavignol?! Worse, together with the cheese, soon gone might be oysters, and epsilon common sense... Quo vadis, France?

• Searching for the perfect chess player, human or machine... Put your money on AI; leave poker for humans.

• The most exciting scientific upshot I've heard about in a great while: explaining the tip-of-the-tongue moments. It comes finally clear (although at this stage I understand it is still just speculative/conjectural, and needs more testing) why polyglots (such as I like to consider myself...) have more of a problem in remembering specific words than people who use a single language: “ […] this kind of forgetfulness is due to infrequency of use; basically, the less often you use a word, the harder it is for your brain to access it." Good, I will feel much better when invoking 'lapsus memoriae' next time :-).

• The quest for the better, simpler, (American) living times: old, but superb Daily Show clip, via Tabarrok, on MR

• Economics research in perfect worlds.


• How very true, though my feeling is that the battle for the brightest junior (and not only) Economists is far from over. It is sadly not Europe overall that might offer an alternative for European economists (not a chance: for starters, Europe needs to cut that embarrasing red tape where academics depend on useless, worthless, ridiculous bureacrats, and to think of attractive real wages... ), but Canada and Australia, which look more and more like worthy competitors to the USA (top; the bulk is way worse than pretty much anywhere in western Europe) places (related, earlier).

Atlanta and ASSA grand finale

Right, almost two months since my visit to Atlanta, hence high time to wrap up and conclude.

Briefly on Atlanta itself: ultimately not that appealing a city. In fact, probably the least interesting city I have visited in USA so far (caveat lector: I have deliberately avoided stuff a priori known to be dull), bar San Antonio, Texas (which might have changed since my trip there in '04, but I doubt it). It does have an attractive small city center though, and a couple of decent bars and restaurants. Oh, and not to forget, the Aquarium is definitely worth a visit (even if what they claim, ie. that they are the largest aquarium in the world, was true in 2005 at the time of their opening...), despite that the Beluga whales are/were? on holiday, and the whole place is a tad too commercial for my taste (much more so than the New York Aquarium, say, which is not that large or exciting, but looks definitely better organized, in particular lacking that nonsensical, pushy, overly-populistic, inside marketing). The "gentle giants", the whale sharks, are amazing, you could watch them for hours (did not have time for a dive with them, but that would have probably been the best thing to do in Atlanta) and so are a bunch of species I saw for the first time live, including the huge Japanese spider crabs etc. The one big regret: I did not have time to visit the CNN Center in Atlanta (on the other hand, I am glad I did not queue up for the Coca-Cola Museum).


Back to the Atlanta restaurant stage: the best experience by far was Top Flr, with amazingly low prices for that quality (e.g., an extremely tasty scallops dish, with citrus braised endive, ginger, lemon grass reduction, and horseradish celery salad, at 15 dollars; pair that with a nice Austrian Pinot Gris-- or, but they had run out of it at the time, a subtle French Viognier--, at less than 40 dollars per bottle), and a remarkable environment in general (note: the cab got lost on the way--allegedly, a max 7 min drive--, with Google Maps, and normal maps, and all technical devices in use; after about 30 minutes we realized the problem was very much the cab driver, not the location of Top Flr). Bacchanalia was also up there, quality-wise (the veal sweetbreads, with "braised local baby collard greens", was just out of this world), and service-wise (e.g., the sommelier had some super interesting tips to substitute wines we asked for, which they did not have; btw, what's up with that Viognier-- and nota bene, I did not say Condrieu-viognier; that is unfortunately missing anytime, anywhere-- absent from all Atlanta places that advertise to normally have it on the wine menu), but somehow below the expectations I had for such an exquisite place (I can only have extremely high expectations from a place supposed to be the best of its kind in Atlanta). Anyway, if you happen to be around, these two places are certainly worth checking out. Moreover, you might be able to find some top quality dishes in some absolutely unassuming places; that was a pleasant surprise.

Further highlights from the ASSA @ Atlanta:

• Hal Varian's, on computer-intermediated transactions, and the history of technical innovation and implications in general, was by far the best keynote (the 2010 Richard T. Ely lecture) of the whole AEA conference. Varian knows how to bridge the academic and the more general audience sides better than anybody else; he is natural when it comes to joking, without forcing himself whatsoever; and he has always something very interesting to say. To keep to some of the funny things he mentioned (unfortunately could not yet trace slides/ talk summary anywhere online), one of them was the fading importance and influence of HiPPOs (Highly Paid Person Opinions) in IT and beyond; he also thought he coined himself the label "micromultinational", before he googled it and found many precedents; and he shared with us the conviction that 'if you torture the data enough, it will eventually give up everything' (now you know what Google is up to).
• Robert Shiller gave this year's joint AEA/AFA talk: very provocative, and quite original, particularly his arguments for issuing GDP shares, or so-called "trills", which he had also written about a couple of days before, in the NYTimes (that idea is really not that crazy as it looks at first, trust me). The not so clear/bright? part: he also made repeated allusions to all previous and current "amateur economists", who have no clue about how the financial market works, although avoided being any more concrete; some macro/finance people in the large panel behind him were not smiling at all.
• The very much awaited session on "New Directions in the Economic Analysis of Human Capital" was not as exciting as it announced itself: Gary Becker, the one who was supposed to chair it, was missing, while some discussants were either not there or did not say anything (since they shared all their comments with the authors before the session?!): organization, what can I say... But there were at least two very good presentations, one by Gabriella Conti (paper joint with Heckman and Urzua) on "Education and Health", and the other one by William Hubbard (paper joint with Becker and Murphy) on "The Market for College Graduates and the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women". Plus, I have a great picture of Josh Angrist and Jim Heckman sharing one podium. That is a most rare occasion, I can tell you :-).
• Finally, Avinash Dixit's talk at the Nobel Laureate Luncheon honoring Paul Krugman was very nice and as funny as one can imagine: there is probably nobody who could introduce and summarize better Krugman's work, including and emphasizing his pioneering (1978!) work on "The theory of Interstellar Trade"-- which Krugman later announced that it might finally be published in Economic Inquiry. Which is truly great news, since this would be then one of the two funniest papers ever published, in the entire history of Economics academe (the other one being the 1983 AER paper of Preston McAfee, "American Economic Growth and the Voyage of Columbus"-- download here a non-gated version; with thanks to Tor for the tip) . You should definitely read them both-- it will convince you that people do have a lot of fun, next to doing great research, in Economics. Since we're mentioning Krugman: here's a pretty well written, recent, bio article (cats included); and we couldn't do without his musical super fans, of course: e.g., listen to/see this or this.

Sunday night econlinks: Submit the paper right now!

• The Tilburg Univ "Econ Schools Ranking". It is indeed using a rather decent pool of journals (for period 2004-2008) and moreover, you can construct your own top by choosing subsets of those journals (such as top 5 only, if you wish). Not a bad idea.

• Tabarrok on the issue of publishing referee reports. This by no means new, in fact I also had a few thoughts on this, inspired by others (inter alia, former editors at top journals, e.g., the PNAS) who had had such ideas etc.

• A pity they decided to close before I managed to assess them... While I honestly hope Ferran Adrià will revisit this decision, I cannot help noticing that this simply paves the way for the would-be King of Restaurants: El Bulli is dead, long live Noma! I promise to tell you more about Noma in the first week of April.

• (A noteworthy) LEAP forward at Harvard (via Al Roth, at Market Design). The sort of interesting academic initiatives that European universities would be wise to imitate (hope dies last)...

• Art catastrophes happen everywhere, quite frequently.

• The sustainable, meat-eating, vegetarians. And, (in a funny way) related, a great "Hústorta" short movie, by a promising young director, Jakab-Benke Nándor (with thanks to Dan). By the way, this Toldi restaurant in Cluj Napoca, on Clinicilor 23, (tried for the first time with the occasion of my recent trip there) is indeed a place where they know how to prepare meat. In general. So if you want good meat, definitely a place to try. The problem is that there is not much else than meat there... Literally. And they could do so much more. The service and ambiance are pretty decent, though they could invest in more/better marketing (online included, for instance).

• An ancient rejection letter (and more background to it). Would be a pity if this were not submitted to Economic Inquiry (first bullet point), for instance.

• Good: Jay McInerney apparently takes over the wine column at WSJ. Let us hope he's gonna be as entertaining as in Bacchus & me (first bullet point).

• Time to put all these culinary-links-Chicago in order and save for future reference, before I get there (blame the EU Commission if I am late): Chicago's great culinary middle ground. Assuming I will not go every second day to Avec (which I've tried twice by now) and above (looking very much forward to).

• Posner and Becker on consumer competence, in particular about whether any regulation concerning obesity is necessary. Or proof of the fact that Becker has a Nobel in Economics, while Posner only believes he should get one...

• And, finally for today, under the heading "Econ work is never over", this is a perfect advice for people like myself: "Submit the paper right now! Submit the paper right now!" Brilliant. Via Jeff Ely, at Cheaptalk.

The hard road to Transylvania

4 hours inside a KLM/Malev plane that just wouldn't take off at Schiphol (after 2 extra hours of waiting for the-- eventually, wrong-- plane to arrive); a (involuntary, for a change) night spent in beautiful but frozen Budapest (helped by the fact that my friend Balint was very inspired for the dinner suggestion; even the house white wine was very decent!-- though nothing like my favourite Hungarian white); quality time the next day (inter alia, absolutely great mushroom soup and venison with juniper berries, for lunch!) spent with my good old friend, master of all things Budapest, Daniel, while waiting for the uncertainty concerning trains towards Cluj to be resolved; and partly resolved it was after endless hours, although they forgot to provide a 1st class (they were considerate enough to give me a full 2nd class compartment instead, all the >8 hours long trip...enough time to go through quite a few Econometrica articles, tons of coffee, and a number of jazz and classical music albums...); but, finally, Transylvania it is, for the last couple of days: great feeling to be home. All nice and well, for the rest; among other things, my Xmas present arrived just in time, with compliments from the EU Commission.

Oh, and not to forget: You Baffle Me... (by the one and only female equivalent of Yann Tiersen out there, Shannon Wright; e.g. Shannon can also do this, or this, or this, or this.., and much much more, check out for instance all her wonderful Let in the Light album; plus, naturally, she had to collaborate on a fantastic album with Tiersen : for instance, this and this are simply perfect).

Econlinks

• The top 100 global thinkers, according to Foreign Policy. With the usual caveats: some should clearly not be there, others are missing (even from the first 5 positions, say...) etc. Highly subjective, but well, a top...

• Terry Tao makes a nice and concise exposition of some of the most beautiful parts at the intersection of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (oh, nostalgia...), including quick reviews of classical and quantum mechanics.

• Some super nice games/quizzes via Steve Landsburg. Indeed be careful, some are highly addictive. For instance, The Paradoxion Express.

• Probably London's very first Indian restaurant (related, earlier- 2nd bullet point). With thanks to Daniel!

• The way forward for art: private funding with the right incentives for donors/funders. I think this ought to work also for universities, including public European ones... which are notoriously bad at this task, as we all know (with the important caveat that, especially in these European universities, the persons in charge of alumni networks and the like should really be the brains and not the (sub)mediocrities-- which seems to be the default in a lot of such places, even beyond the obvious fact that these are typically people with more /a lot more spare time; perhaps they/we should understand/decide that this is too important a job to leave to those with time to "spare" on it...-- only the brains can attract other brains and...their money).

Tokyo, Narisawa, Takemitsu: Arigato!

It happened almost two months ago (see last bullet point here), so I've thought it is about time I gave you some impressions about my Tokyo trip :-). Obviously I do not plan to get into what you can find described in detail online, e.g. the more than decent Tokyo-wiki source.

For starters, very briefly, some (incomplete, random, and likely very personal) general impressions about Tokyo. My good old friends Sae and Folkert gave me plenty of information and advice on what I must see, but unfortunately I did not eventually manage even half of that... For instance, places outside Tokyo, like Yokohama and Kamakura, are priorities for next time (though Kyoto is clearly my number 1 priority in what regards my next trip to Japan, will try to make that happen as soon as possible). I also had very little time, however, for Harujuku (but, just from what I did see, I have to say that I like Ginza as shopping area, and also simply as city area, much more) and I only saw Roppongi by evening/night time (restaurants in the area are lovely; the persistence of the many black American guys trying to get you in every (strip)club is quite annoying). Loved the Tsukiji fish market (though I arrived there pretty much after the main action was gone; I am not a morning person...), particularly eating very fresh sushi right in the middle of it (after queing ad infinitum: I guess I am not the only sushi lover). Very very unfortunately, I did not have enough time to look for and try this place called Daiwa sushi, allegedly the best sushi place in the world (see the third bullet point from here for that Guardian list), very close to the Tsukiji market as well. In any case, once you eat sushi and sashimi even in average places in Tokyo, you will never ever want to eat them outside Japan-- there is simply no comparison! To the other Japanese delicatesse: the "Kobe beef temple" in the middle of the electronic town (Akihabara) was fantastic; I could have basically eaten all that beef raw.

People in Tokyo are very stylish, in general. The style and very good taste are actually extending beyond personalia and are to be found everywhere; for instance, quite impressive is that the most unassuming, average restaurant/ cafe, will play Norah Jones, or Gershwin, or Mozart, or Takemitsu (of whom more below). I was negatively impressed however by how few Japanese speak English, and how bad they speak it when they speak it (just try to ask for directions to random people in the street...you will not try a second time). They are also obsessively polite (which, very likely, you know already: what I am telling you is that they are even more polite than whatever you heard/imagined). The center is extremely crowded, at every hour (Amsterdam is Mickey Mouse compared to Tokyo, in that regard); I am still puzzled by the (seemingly stable...) equilibrium consisting of pedestrians and bicycles in full speed, sharing the very same sidewalk. Too humid and warm for my October mood, but I guess one can get used to it. The Japanese toilets are just the finest piece of technology ever put to basic needs use: I am actually very surprised that they did not get popular outside Japan; in Japan they are (still) en vogue (the very funny conference guide we had explained us that Japanese people might not want a dishwasher, but then every single one of them will have the latest technology toilet). The guided bus trip around Tokyo after the CAED conference, with a long stop at the legendary Senjoji temple in Asakusa, and particularly the great dinner & cruise on the Tokyo Bay (under a beautiful starry night) that finalized it all, were by far the best sightseeing part, from my perspective. Needless to say, the dinner ended-- as usually in Japan, I am being told-- with a very succesful karaoke (no, I did not participate in the singing part; you really wouldn't want me to participate) where, inter alia, I learnt that David Neumark has another competitive advantage next to that of the economist: he is the best interpreter of Deep Purple songs after Deep Purple themselves :-).

One of the absolute highlights was the lunch at Les Créations de Narisawa (many thanks to Valérie for the extremely inspired suggestion), a superb 1-star Michelin restaurant and the best restaurant of Asia (number 20 in the world) in 2009, according to San Pellegrino (this is by no means little accomplishment, particularly given the sea of Michelin-starred restaurants in Tokyo alone! Actually, I conjecture that Narisawa's restaurant will receive the 3 Michelin stars in 5-6 years, the latest). There are simply no words to describe my impression about the food, so I will let Valérie's pictures speak instead (I am too lazy to put mine online for now, but this will happen... at some point-- I might then link back to this blogpost): the menu, first appetizer, second appetizer , third appetizer, first starter, second starter, main dish, dessert plate, dessert 1, dessert 2, dessert 3, Japanese white whine (instead, I tasted a fabulous Chateau Lestrille, Entre-deux-Mers, 2008: it is the first wine described here), I also had the best mint green tea in the world; unfortunately you will have to imagine the taste from looking at the pictures, at least until you manage to get there...). The service was beyond perfection. And, to top it all, no less than the famous chef, Yoshihiro Narisawa himself, came at the end of the lunch to greet and have an informal chat with us: now this is what I call caring for your customers; I solemnly declare myself the biggest fan of Narisawa-san! In a nutshell, this was by far the best lunch I've ever had.

I'll end with a few lines on one of my alltime favourite-things Japan, i.e. my favourite Japanese music composer, Toru Takemitsu. Unfortunately, although I planned it carefully before getting there, it turned out I could not save enough time to go and look in Tokyo for a bunch of Takemitsu works that I definitely definitely must have. So I'll probably end up buying them from Amazon instead. Anyway, here's just a flavour (with thanks to YouTube... and hoping they would not be removed from there any time soon) of some of my favourite Takemitsu pieces. Just ideal for starting the week, my very number 1 Takemitsu work, a 200% masterpiece: November Steps (Part 1; Part 2). And if you have even more time (you must!), listen also to my preferred Takemitsu soundtrack, Black Rain, and to one of the finest piano works out there, Rain Tree Sketch (which I actually heard being played in Tokyo, in one of the nice cafes from Ginza). Enjoy!

Weekend econlinks

• Sharing information in scientific research: yes/no/when. Interesting, but the analysis here is applicable only in the context of some sciences (arguably, not most). Moreover, sharing by means of co-authorship is discussed at best indirectly (if one is willing to expand on their repeated interaction game thread...). But my major "disagreement" has to do with their upshot: my conjecture is that know-how sharing is, ceteris paribus, over all disciplines, U-shaped in the degree of competition (and, since I also believe that, overall, very high competition dominates very low competition equilibria, you already know what my prior of the ideal is). Remains however an open empirical question for now.

• We are what we ate: Tony Judt's culinary autobiography. Reminds me that (fortunately) I have only got to know top Indian restaurants in London (in general, Londonese Indian cuisine is probably, up to now, my favourite in the world; though surely there is a variance): a lot must have changed.

• Stanford also jumped in Google's bandwagon of online (dissertation) publishing.

• David Brooks on "the other education": concise and well written. I usually call this second education "exposure". The vast majority of people I've met hardly had any.

• Hyperopia... as a concern.

• Cheaptalk on the election process of Econometric Society Fellows. Not extremely surprising or, for that matter, singular within Economics; after all, they almost forgot Hurwicz for the Nobel Prize..., for largely the same reason: most of the people who used to propose and lobby for him died at some point... I think Ely is right: focus on the young people-- at least that would be an attempt to solve the problem for the future... And yes, for potential candidates why wouldn't you just look to the Econometrica editions (Lones Smith's suggestion in the comments)...

• Music critic review: mode d'emploi, by John Adams.

• Sex toy research. Or Ariely in the quest for another Nobel Ig :-). Goes without saying that I am extremely interested in the results.

• Philip Greenspun on universities and economic growth; via Razvan, on Ad Astra. First impression: he writes much and he misunderstands a lot; particularly the Economics of it all (no, he is not qualified to understand what is clear and what is controversial in Clark's book, to give but one example). Also, doesn't seem to realize (not sure whether qualifying this as voluntary misrepresentation would be better or worse...) the difference between statistical and anectodal evidence. And, in general, he doesn't seem to have decided whether his target is to make people incensed at or interested in what he has to say. BUT, although he errs nearly everywhere else, I agree that a. much change is needed in the way teaching in most universities is done nowadays (see also the 3rd bullet point here on opinions on the value of college education & all that jazz); b. he has some very decent ideas there (others had/have them too) and c. these changes would not cost too much, with the benefit very likely to outweigh that cost. (Probably) Inadvertently, Greenspun is actually arguing for a "Japanese approach" (which the Japanese apply to both teaching and on-the-job training): give a rather broad ("customer-based", if you want some context) training, be able to/ focus on study/work in teams, always help the new/junior ones etc. etc. There is however a known problem with the (standard) Japanese perspective to (life-long) education that I am not sure Greenspun is aware of... Simply put, you really do not want to give no/wrong incentives at the very top of the ability distribution.

• One of the two prediction markets on the 2009 Romanian Presidential Election is now closed and cashed-out (the other one is also "closed", but waiting for the final results on Dec 6th), as the official First Round results of that election are out. Several participants won (virtual) money (yours truly included), but the congratulations go to Dan, as he is the one who won the most (a fortune!). Which means that he is obviously going to pay for the (very good: e.g. the French on this list?) wine, with the occasion of our next meeting :-).

Weekend econlinks

• Acemoglu on how nations can get rich: "Fix incentives and you will fix poverty. And if you wish to fix institutions, you have to fix governments"

• Blogossary. With some definitions completely redundant.

• Carlsen is finally right where he should be. For now in Blitz.

• Diploma mills and degree mills. Romania has plenty, Denmark at least one very famous case (though Wikipedia is too slow for that).

• Caballero on sudden financial arrest. I don't agree with everything: the moral hazard is not merely fuzzy reasoning in the context.

• What's up with all the vampire hype: Tyler Cowen's answers. If you want the perspective of a vampire on why vampires are popular, you can meet me in private.

• "If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot." And many other smart thoughts from Umberto Eco (Part 1, Part 2).

• The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: it exists (and seemingly functions well). Reminds me that I still have to read Edward Castronova's "Synthetic Worlds"...

• Undercover Michelin inspector. Clearly not such a flashy job as Anton Ego's, but if they were to consider hiring part-time, amateur (willing to heavily train on-the-job, though) food inspectors, I would be very interested... :-)

• Very little time left for you to trade Romanian Potential President stock. You have to act NOW! :-)

Sunday econlinks

• One of the reasons I just love reading Landsburg: he is acid and funny. Here's something that hopefully will open a longer exchange between him and Krugman: I really think Steve Landsburg is the proper counterpart to Paul Krugman in any debate (NB: Mankiw is great, but too serious and not engaging--understandably-- enough in the type of debate Krugman seems to love). And I tell you beforehand that I shall bet all my money on Landsburg :-). This for instance should be kept for posterity: "But sometimes I think Paul Krugman is out to top them all, by excelling in two activities that are not just disparate but diametrically opposed: economics (for which he was awarded a well-deserved Nobel Prize) and obliviousness to the lessons of economics (for which he’s been awarded a column at the New York Times)."

• The semicolon is dead; long live (or rather: resurrected is) the interrobang?!

• Who should go to college and who should pay for it: with many specialist opinions (via MR). Signalling seems to be dominating as point of view, though I myself think that university also has a genuine positive effect (I agree that matters most for the students in the top of the ability distribution). Else, all might be boiling down in the limit to competition between cats with fraudulent diplomas (via boingboing, via MR).

• Kirman has been writing about these things for quite a while now (with high frequency recently), and almost always on such a revolted tone; these things are happening within Economics, for quite some years now, much of what he mentions is mainstream or closeby (think of social interactions and networks, herding behaviour in finance etc). Plus arguing for discarding these old and well known models (my belief is that most serious economists are very well aware of their limitations for each specific context), just for the sake of discarding them, is madness (who is ideologue here?...). I really don't think this is the way one should argue for different approaches. All my respect for Alan Kirman's scientific work, but with his (especially recent) comments he does seem to go/fall a long way in the direction of non-Economists misinterpreting Econ fundamentals (first bullet point), or, worse, of the several nonsense people writing now and then in The Guardian, e.g. here (6th bullet point) or here.

• The "10 simple rules for scientists" collection at PloS Computational Biology (via MR). Some are redundant, others are great; within the latter category, I think everybody should memorize the "10 simple rules for doing your best research, according to Hamming" (though ok..., rules 5 and 10 are very much location-specific :-)).

• La mémoire refoulée de la Roumanie-- le communisme reste "une abstraction".

• Tim Harford on the "Jamie Oliver Feed Me Beter" experiment in UK schools. Features recent econ research analysing effects of that experiment, by Michele Belot and Jonathan James; you can download a draft version here. The preliminary results suggest that good food has considerable positive effect on educational outcomes. Extrapolating: so stop telling me not to spend my money on Michelin-starred restaurants :-).

• The young Viking is on top of the world right now, according to the unofficial 14 Nov ELO ratings (though I am dissapointed he let Kramnik win the Tal Memorial this year, Carlsen tying for second with Ivanchuk). See also a (happy) Norwegian article on the matter(via Susan Polgar).

• I think "wine critics/commentators" should move-- what they should have done a long time ago-- to identify / classify wine quality ranges, rather than preserve the current practice of grading on a 1 -100 scale. In any case, the last paragraph in this article is the one to retain.

• Less then a week left before the Prediction Markets on the upcoming Romanian Presidentials close: don't waste the opportunity to trade your favourite Presidential stock! :-).

Econlinks

• The Nobel Ig prizes this year. My favourite is the Literature one: "Ireland's police service for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means 'Driving License'". Almost as good as the Nigerian Literature Ig winners a while ago. At the same time, the Economics Ig for '09 is somewhat forced; the whole Icelandic population should have gotten it: as we know, they were all into banking until rather recently.

• Christopher Caldwell in the Financial Times with the best piece on the Polanski saga as yet. Everybody else is awfully subjective.

• Guardian's list of where to find the best foods in the world. Room for disagreement, but still worth checking out. Unfortunately, I have recently missed the Barcelona and Tokyo places from the list... Plus a nice exposition of the contemporary American cuisine's highs.

• Somebody stop the Viking... ! More. He drew Leko and (again) Topalov in the latest two games, but he is still two points ahead. Let's hope this partnership with Kasparov (5th bullet point) works out and Carlsen stops losing the end games after dominating for most part all recent major tournaments...

• Goolsbee might indeed be the funniest economist alive, via Greg Mankiw. Of course, this was not unexpected: he'd already excelled on the (in)famous Colbert Report.

• The Dutch to the rescue of Scandinavian small towns?

• Writing from Schiphol, after almost 11 hours return flight from Tokyo. Detailed impressions in due time. Now boarding again.

Tallinn highlights. And the egoists.

• Architecture-wise, the Old Town is a combination of Brasov+ Cluj + Sighisoara centres (Transylvanian cities), including a mirror image of the Taylor's Bastion from Cluj (despite my guide's insistence that Tallinn is the only city with a Bastion in its very centre). Much better preserved, though. In a nutshell, a most modern medieval town. Plus a seaside. Lovely, lovely (we wouldn't want it off the UNESCO World Heritage list, oh no)!

• Free wireless everywhere in the city. No kidding. I think it was in a single spot in the Old Town where my Ipod could not trace any free network. Admirable!

• Power to the youth: Estonian newspapers are being sold by kids; the Government minister who addressed the EALE '09 audience was in his early thirties (possibly reason why he apologised a zillion times for having to leave as soon as done with his talk...); a/the Central Bank governor (gave the shortest and smartest address I have ever heard from EALE organizers/hosts/sponsors... ) was in his early forties etc. Something other countries in Eastern Europe should learn from?...

• Egoist was absolutely fantastic. And, well... egoistic... from all points of view (ex post non-egoistic complaints/regrets/remorses from real Swedes and Taiwanese were obviously ignored :-)...). Anyhow, the Foie Gras Escoffier was the second best I ever had, while the Estonian Elk Noisette paired with a 2006 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf-de-Pape (which some believe to outrank even the legendary 2005 version!) was sheer perfection. A total bargain at that price!

• And, of course, once more congrats to Juanna for winning this year's YLE EALE prize. Wishing at the same time that she stayed a pure "egoist". Potential others seem to complain all the time :-).

PS. And yeah..., there've been already two weeks since I am back: had to fight off a stubborn Estonian flu acquired under the most unclear circumstances.

Back from Catalunya

My Iberian experience (previous episodes here, here and here, some still incomplete) continued with 10 great (although unbearably hot...) end August days in Barcelona, around the EEA-ESEM conference this year, excellently hosted by the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, in its two campuses at Autònoma and Pompeu Fabra. Keeping it very brief, my (very selective) highlights:

• conference-wise, I have seen several excellent paper presentations and invited talks, but ultimately enjoyed most Pinelopi Goldberg's Marshall lecture on the effects of global patent agreements for pharmaceutical companies, talk partially based on this paper. The results were quite surprising (at least given my priors...): this is definitely worth reading/considering very carefully.
• I had to check out some of Barcelona's famous restaurants; hence, I shall warmly recommend to anybody, foodie or not: i) pretty much any of the tapas dishes (perhaps a random selection would be best for your first visit!), accompanied, for instance (their wine list is not very large, but counts some excellent wines), by an unforgettable Santiago Ruiz Blanco, at Paco Meralgo -- without exaggeration one of the best tapas places I have ever tried; ii) Sagardi Euskal Taberna (in the beautiful Barrio Gótico) is obviously not Catalan-cuisine..., but I've found beyond delicious their baby squid in ink sauce, accompanied by the perfect Basque Country cider (guess which side of Spain I must visit next...); iii) I would not really compare, overall, this restaurant to the first two mentioned above, but if you try the monkfish at Can Ramonet (ask for the 'monkfish in Can Ramonet sauce', obviously), and accompany that with their superb Gramona Sauvignon Blanc, that'll surely make a perfect evening. The only regret is that I did not have time to try all the places on my list; inter alia El Bulli will have to remain for some future time... and some future budget :-).
• if you thought I ignored all that, not a chance: Barcelona is, perhaps first of all, Antoni Gaudí's city. Obviously you should find plenty of documentation (and/or impressions) about Sagrada Família, Casa Batlló, Casa Milà or the Parc Güell (the latter my favourite Gaudí-related spot in Barcelona), so I'll just say that you will be forever impressed, even if Art Nouveau is not necessarily your favourite architectural bite-- Gaudí's style is unique (delayed confession: I guess I am totally into Bauhaus, especially after admiring Walter Gropius's amazing 1938 house in Lincoln, with the occasion of my earlier visit this year to Boston)
• last, but never least: essential for my Barcelona visit, my good old friend Joop is to be thanked for being a great host, guide, and... cook! That fresh monkfish ceviche was truly fabulous-- I think I just chose it one of my very favourite dishes, though for now I hesitate attempting to prepare it myself (even considering solved the problem of finding very fresh el rape) :-).