The Restaurant Guys

TEASER! Ray Isle, Wine Author and Editor at Food & Wine

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This is a Vintage Selection from 2007

The Banter

The Guys talk about what Altoids and Cap’n Crunch have in common. They also “cover” some issues with “uncovered servers”

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys welcome wine writer Ray Isle who explains biodynamic viticulture and shares his 7 rules for pairing wine and food. Find out what Ray calls the shortstop of wine. 

The Inside Track

The Guys have had Ray on the show previously and wanted to have him back on to discuss his Seven Rules.

 Ray: Some wines do go better with some foods than others. So I do think it's possible to have some basic rules at hand that actually do work. Once in a while they may slightly backfire on you, but I came up with seven. I'm willing to go to the mat to say that they're pretty effective.

Mark: So, Ray, do you know how you know that I liked your seven rules? I brought you on the show. If I were just gonna make fun of 'em, I wouldn't have embarrassed you in person. 

-Ray Isle on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2007

Bio

Ray Isle was a senior editor at Wine & Spirits magazine. In 2005, he moved to Food & Wine. He writes the monthly “What to Drink Next” column as well as regular feature articles. He’s also the wine editor for Travel + Leisure.

His writing on wine, spirits, travel and other topics has appeared in Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Wine & Spirits, Time, Martha Stewart Living, and others. 

He has won awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), the American Food Journalists and the North American Travel Journalists Association, and is a James Beard Award nominee. 

His book is The World in a Wineglass.

He appears regularly in national media such as Today and Weekend Today.

Info

Ray’s site

https://rayisle.com/

Ray’s contribution to Food & Wine

https://www.foodandwine.com/search?q=ray+isle

Email us for Ray’s 7 Rules for Perfect Pairing

theguys@restaurantguyspodcast.com

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Mark:

Morning Mark. Morning Francis. How are you this morning? I, I'm doing pretty well. I had a little funny thing happen to me this morning. Oh, funny, funny, do detail that I wanna share with you, but it, I wanna start with a question. Why is it that I can get, my daughter will eat rocks or rubble or marbles, but lettuce not so much. I, I haven't, I haven't quite figured that out. Hmm. I, I came downstairs today and my wife is laughing. And my daughter is sitting at the kitchen table and she's gotten into the Altoids. Mm, the curiously strong mitts. I bet you smells great. Hold on. And she's got like 11 of them in her mouth, Uhhuh. And she's shoving them in her mouth as fast as she can, and they're, her eyes are watering. Okay? They're tears coming at, it's not crying. There are tears coming outta her eyes because it's so minty, minty and strong. And yet she continues to put them in her mouth and I, and I keep thinking. Is broccoli that bad? Okay. Shouldn't it shouldn't. Why? Why are you eating?

Francis:

No, I think, I think it's the same, it's the same thing as people who like to eat hot food or spicy food. I have, there are these ginger candies that I eat all the time.

Mark:

I, I think it's that she's, that she's two years old and she wants to eat whatever. I don't want her to,

Francis:

no. Nope, nope. I think it has to do with the whole pain thing. It's like eating hot peppers. It's like hurts. But then you want another one.

Mark:

I, I told you about, I had a, I had a doctor a while back and on my very last visit to him, this doctor was 320 pounds, six foot tall. And he was talking to me one day about, you know, you really need to lose some weight. And I'm looking at him going. Huh? What are you talking about? Okay, you are drinking an I and, and anyway, he's talking to me about, you know, eating and, you know, I'm talking to him about the restaurants. He's like, yeah, I got this real issue. I, uh, love salt and vinegar potato chips, and I will eat salt and vinegar potato chips until the sides of my mouth crack and start to bleed. And then I'll just keep eating them. I can't stop and the salt and vinegar will get in the cracks in the sides of my mouth and I'll keep eating them. I can't stop. And I thought. I am never coming back here again.

Francis:

Yeah. Time to change doctors is what that is. I'm never returning to time, time to change to this place,

Mark:

but I guess, you know, I guess it's the same thing that makes us eat Captain Crunch and even though it like chew up the roof of our mouth, you know, when we, when you're a kid, didn't you ever eat that second bowl of Captain Crunch, even though you knew it was gonna rough up the, the roof of your mouth?

Francis:

I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah. No. Oh,

Mark:

well most of the listeners are thinking how nuts you are. Yeah, because it Captain Crunch. If you eat one bowl of Captain Crunch, it's totally fine If you eat two Bowl and you know, as a, as a kid, I ate my Share Captain Crunch, I'll be honest with you. Mm-hmm. If you eat two bowls of Captain Crunch. Your mouth only has so much tolerance for the abrasiveness of Caping Crunch. That stuff that makes it stay crunchy in the milk? Yeah. Okay. Well, it stays crunchy. That stuff that makes it stay crunchy, abuses the roof of your mouth and you will, it will rough up the surface of your mouth and actually hurt. And it's much like the salt and vinegar potato chips. Does it, do you do it again? Do you do it more? Of course you do it well. You don't have a third bowl. Okay. I'm, you know, you just, first of all,'cause you're not hungry anymore, but, second of all,'cause your mouth really hurts now. Um, but I guess it's that same thing. The captain crunch in the roof of your mouth, the salt and vinegar in the, that, that make the sides of your mouth bleed and the altoids until you're crying. 2-year-old sitting at my table.

Francis:

Um, this is one of those pleasures that I missed and I, and I don't think, I don't feel the need to rush out and get one. But on the subject of putting salt in a wound, uh, we should share with our listeners our recent experience. We were walking down the streets of Manhattan and we came across a place that we've made fun of before. Mm. And you made us go in and get a drink.

Mark:

You really did. Uh, we were passing, we had about 15 minutes to spare. We were gonna be early for the next thing. We were going to next meeting, and we, and I said, uh, we're going past. We have to go in and, and we went

Francis:

to the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. The Hawaiian Tropic Zone is a, a restaurant in Manhattan that's supposedly a real restaurant, looked like a real restaurant. Mm-hmm. and David Burke is the chef there. I don't know why he's. Chosen to get involved in something. And I, I find I just, I think it's, I don't think it's wrong. I think it should be allowed to be, but I find it in poor taste and I, and I, I don't care for it. I, I would never be, I would never involve myself in it. But, um, it's where the, the waitresses. Serve you food in

Mark:

sarongs and bikini

Francis:

tops. Bikinis, like open sarongs. Mm-hmm. Like bikini tops and bikini bottoms. Oh yeah. Okay. And, uh, you know, look, a go-go bar is a go-go bar. You know what you're getting into. Uh, fine dining restaurant, you know, women have faced dis discrimination on the floors of restaurants for a long time. Mm-hmm. When you meld the two, now this is a restaurant with windows on two sides. You can look right in. Mm-hmm. And believe me, there were a lot of dirty old men staring in the window of the Hawaiian Tropic zone at the waitresses in these rather small bikinis, serving tables full of businessmen. And there were women in there as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, the food looked halfway decent. There was a reasonable cocktail menu. Absolutely. Um, it was Ooie though. It was ook. I, I

Mark:

remember what you said when I, well, it's my line. We were sitting at the bar. Can I, can I get Can Oh, please, please. You have to.

Francis:

And we both were like, uh, and we've been in a go-go bar together. It's not something we've done before, but in our past, the Sure. You go to bachelor party. Party or whatever. Sure. And, you know, I don't feel uncomfortable there, but I really felt ooky and like, well first of all, it's incongruous to see a woman in a Hawaiian print bikini. On Broadway. Mm-hmm. Okay. In Windows on both sides, with the dirty old men looking in from outside, it's

Mark:

also incongruous to say, you know, what do you think about the 76 burgundies on the list?

Francis:

Or even, I don't, I just don't. I, it's, it, it was, it was just uncomfortable to me, and I think it should be uncomfortable to you. And, uh, that's my, that's my view. But you know, if you enjoy it, enjoy it, but. What, what we were, mark and I were trying to figure out just what was making us so uncomfortable as we thought it would make us uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. And the line that I came up with, this line I've heard used before,

Mark:

I'm gonna tell you truthfully, you know, I, we've joked about the place and, and talked about the concept of the place, but I really did feel uncomfortable when I walked. And it's a nice room. It's clean, it's a nice room, but I really did feel uncomfortable. I, I really did feel like I was cheating on my wife a little bit while I was in there. Well,

Francis:

well, but, but. You know, mark said, you know, now why is this so uncomfortable? I mean, you know, we've been around women in bikinis before. Mm-hmm. I'm like, and, and this is what I said. I said, you know, a, a bikini is a bathing suit. Unless you're wearing high heel, then it's linger. That's, that's when the bikini crosses from being just a bathing suit to being right. And you're no longer

Mark:

you're no longer my waiter. You're actually on a catwalk.

Francis:

Yeah. It's, it, it was, it was just a bizarre thing and I'm, I'm not for it. I'm against it.

Mark:

Well, you know, certainly a fair amount of our listeners are, are gonna go to places like Hawaiian Tropical Zone. Some because of this particular show are going to go to Hawaiian Tropical Zone. And, and

Francis:

maybe some of our listeners of their dirty old men, but don't have the cahones to go in, can just go stand at the window. And, and, but the guys were like, you know, they, it was sunny out and they were putting their.

Mark:

No joke, this happened. Four. Francis and I were in the place for all of 12 minutes and no joke, four or five times people would press their faces against the window, like,

Francis:

and hold and hold their, their hands over their eyes to shade. You could see. And she shield

Mark:

the shield, the sun, so they could look inside at the, at the girls with my tropical. So how

Francis:

does that work? they, you know, you can't hire men. It can't, it's like the Borgata

Mark:

babes in, in New Jersey a while back.

Francis:

I think what they did was they hired them as they would have to hire them on them conjecture. Now they hired them as models who serve drinks. Mm-hmm. And then you can find them. I will

Mark:

tell you, the women in the place were very good looking. Well, I got a date with one of them, but no, I didn't, I didn't really get a date.

Francis:

Jennifer, if you're listening, I didn't, I didn't really get a date. No, I mean, it was, you tried. He just failed. It was. It was profoundly uncomfortable and, uh, you won't be seeing that at stage after Catherine Lombardi. Anytime. No, not today. Hey, we'll be back in just a moment. Talk I don't look great in a bikini. Talking with, uh, Ray, Ray Isle, who's a great food writer. Uh, senior wine editor for Food and Wine Magazine back in just a moment. Hello everybody and welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, mark and Francis of Stage Left, and Catherine Lombardi restaurants in downtown New Brunswick. We're talking today with Ray Isle. He's one of our favorite wine writers. He's the senior wine editor at Food and Wine Magazine, James Beard nominee among other things.

Mark:

Ray, welcome back to the show. It's great to be back. Thanks for having me.

Francis:

You know, we were talking briefly with Ray during the commercial, and Mark said to Ray said, you know, uh, we read yourself all the time and we just like put it in a file. And when, when it gets big enough, we just call Ray and have him on the show. We love that. A

Ray:

massive accumulation of information.

Francis:

Well, you know, the other thing about your writing Ray, is, you know, being in the, in the business, what's happening and what people are talking about. You really do hit the trends on the head and, and, um. One of the things that we see a lot now, and it's really entered the mainstream. It went from, I think there's this, way, uh, something happens the way an idea grows. It goes from like. Uber wine geeks and top sommelier. Mm-hmm. Right. To like the wine cognoscenti who wanna be on the ne next trend. And then about 2, 3, 4 years later, it goes into the mainstream. Well, something that's really hit the mainstream that you, what I mean by that is you'll see it advertised on a commercial or on a, on a shelf talker, on a supermarket, uh, wine. Aisle is biodynamics now. We see that in organics, uh, in, in agriculture overall. But we see people advertising that their wine is biodynamic. and you've written about that recently? Yeah. Let's talk about it

Mark:

actually. Well, first of all, I mean, Ray biodynamic is such a great word. I mean, it's bio, it's dynamic. I

Ray:

mean, it sounds, it sounds wonderful. It sounds sort of like, you know, healthy and active at the same time. Yeah, exactly.

Francis:

Exactly. So why don't you give us, uh, because I could tell our listening audience what biodynamics is, but that would be the whole show.'cause I'm not very good at, at making things concise.

Ray:

Do a sort of quick, the concise biodynamics. Yeah. What, what is biodynamics one,

Francis:

what is biodynamics and why does it appeal specifically to winemakers over other agricultural concerns? So it's, it's another agricultural concern. Well,

Ray:

I think, you know, it's interesting. Biodynamics is, is unusual in that it has. I mean, it really, really does have both a spiritual aspect and a, and a straightforward organic farming aspect. And that's, that's actually been the kind of controversial thing about it. Um, it's, you know, it's an organic farming movement based on some lectures that a, a philosopher named Rudolph Steiner gave an Austrian philosopher gave in the 1920s. And