The World Series of Gastronomy, Pt. II

New York, ALCS (New York Yankees vs. Texas Rangers)

I hate predictions. I hate making them. I hate reading them. The Buddha says there's no room for hate in our lives. Hate conflicts with our sangha, and I agree, which means I have to find some peace in a predictions heavy world.




Remove hate from your life: don't make predictions.


I don't know who's going to win tomorrow's game. Predictions are part of the job, fodder for the hype machine, so fans can get lathered up in defense of their team or comforted by the warmth of the majority ("We're favored!").
The real problem with it all is that people take predictions so seriously. My postseason predictions went something like this:

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay Rays over Texas Rangers
Minnesota Twins over New York Yankees

Tampa Bay Rays over Minnesota Twins


NATIONAL LEAGUE
Philadelphia Phillies over Cincinnati Reds
San Francisco Giants over Atlanta Braves

Philadelphia Phillies over San Francisco Giants

WORLD SERIES

Philadelphia Phillies over Tampa Bay Rays

As we all know, it was difficult to be more wrong. But, do I really need emails telling me I "ate crow" and that I'm "a douchebag?" Didn't know who was going to win. Didn't care. Dig deep into that musty cliche bag: That's why they play the game, pal...



Your World Series city



When a wrong prediction goes oh, so right...

It reminded me of the great anecdote of 1961 when Roger Maris was melting under the pressure of surpassing Babe Ruth's now-quaint single-season record of 60 home runs in a single season and one person too many asked, "hey Rog, do you think you can break the record?" and Maris replied, "How the fuck should I know?"


Food brings us together. So do the playoffs. In that spirit, I care about three things:
Fast games
Compelling games
Good cities in which to dine.

Therefore, let's reexamine those predictions, shall we?

Minnesota Twins over New York Yankees: Minneapolis is an underrated town, especially in the summertime, but outside of Manny's steakhouse (http://www.mannyssteakhouse.com/)  formerly in the Hyatt Regency and now in the W Hotel on 9th/Marquette I don't know what I was thinking on that one.


Tampa Bay Rays over Texas Rangers: This prediction was made entirely for selfish, gastronomic reasons, the first being a desire to revisit the legendary Bern's (http://www.bernssteakhouse.com/) and to score a tennis lesson in Tampa to establish even a mediocre two-handed backhand. Secondarily, Tampa is more than Bern's, it has wonderful secondary choices from Donatello's (http://www.donatellotampa.com/) - the old-school Italian that started my palate craving for carpaccio to Roy's, the signature exception to the no-chain rule...

Philadelphia over Cincinnati: Picking the Phillies to beat the Reds was solid along baseball lines, and does not require verbosity. Philadelphia was the better obvious choice, but is also an underrated food town, especially for those of us who remember when Walnut Street was anchored by Rib-It and McDonald's. Philadelphia also does an excellent job of adopting the Japanese izakaya tradition of bars that serve above-average food. In this vein, the Standard Tap in Northern Liberties (http://www.yelp.com/biz/standard-tap-philadelphia) leads the way.


There were writers who were pulling for Atlanta to beat San Francisco. This, of course, was nonsense and provided the ultimate proof that years of regular-season hot dogs and October box lunches has stomped the sportswriter taste buds into sawdust. There is no better town in America for food than San Francisco. Any variation on this theme is merely cosmetic, individual matters of taste that cannot be quantified - the difference between choosing Mays or Mantle over the other in their respective primes...



Boulevard.





The classic Berkshire rib chop from Boulevard



Beef carpaccio from Pizza Nostra, San Francisco (Potrero Hill)

Leonard Koppett was a legendary sports writer for four decades. He is  credited with Koppett's Law, which is loosely stated as, "Whatever creates the greatest inconvenience to the largest number of people must happen."

That law, massaged to the sports writers, has read, "Whatever screws the beat writer is what will happen." So, we didn't get Tampa or Philadelphia, but we got San Franscisco and four nights in New York, but had to make Texas work. If you care about food, the writers actually won this time...Who could have predicted that?