By reputation yes. The guide in general has an overall bias towards certain features, food types, service standards and ambiance. To point where there are consulting companies you can hire to almost guarantee you a star by conforming things to a certain formula.

The color of the napkins matters.

try that with gordon ramsey

And that’s particularly important with a tasting menu. Every time I’ve ever done one of those we were asked about dietary requirements and allergies both when it was booked and when we arrived. If a place can’t accommodate due to logistics (usually cross contamination in small facilities) they tell you and post it all…

Oh I wasn’t calling you out for using it. It’s broadly understood, and in usage a little bit more specific than “Modernist Cuisine” which seems to be the preferred term among professionals and major writers. Which is why I think people push back on it.

Molecular Gastronomy is foams and bubbles. Modernist Cuisine is a…

A friend of mine is a Chef, mostly pastry, who once specialized in modernist cuisine. Even staged at WD50, then worked directly with Wylie Dufresne on some James Beard stuff and pop-ups and guest stints for a couple of years. He’s been involved in like 3 or 4 stars at this point.

I think it’s just familiarity a lot of stuff around mid century was sort of least common denominator. And if your from a background where citrus peel is a thing, well in a lot of areas for a long time a tub of neon green was the only way to get there.

Yes. Less than a dollar more than Chipotle. Gouging.

It’s both cheap and insanely easy to make candied citrus peel.

Most don’t automatically think that. That’s how unconscious bias works.

Uncased black pudding is common. Drisheen might be trickier. There are very old versions that are packed into a bladder, often bound with coarse or whole barley and oats. Rather like a haggis.

I assume crumbs substitute for a hard-to-find ingredient,

It’s straight out of 1998.

Brown people made it. If it costs more than $2 it’s a rip off.

That is part and parcel of a stigma around Ethnic food. $14 for an entrée is cheap. Which seems to be their most expensive burrito.

It is in fact much better. But the locations I’m familiar with are sit down and table service. Not a spot you jump into to grab a burrito and a water for less than  $20. But sit for multiple courses and a few rounds a drinks. That puts it in a price tier above Chipotle. 

and isn’t quite analogous to Chipotle as it features a set menu, but it has similarly aimed price points and feels like it’d fit the same fast-casual bill.

If that is the metric an oatmeal raisin cookie is a fruit cake. Everything else about them on a technical level is different. The proportions, the way they’re mixed, how they’re cooked. All the same things that make cakes different from cookies or pastry. I don’t think they’re particularly closely related…

Thomas Keller’s cup for cup tend to bake up indistinguishable from regular AP. But it’s pricey.

There are many, many kinds of fruit cake.

The recipes for fruit cakes and plum/Christmas pudding are entirely different. Especially when it comes to the standard dark fruit cake most make fun of.