When shall we live....

... if not now? (Serve it Forth, M.F.K. Fisher)

The Culinary Artistry ends with this quote, which I found very meaningful.

Another one I like is:

"Through a dining experience, people will connect and share and exchange and support and heal and do all the things that people crave. They reaffirm that life is worth living. And they live." O'Connell

I guess that's part of what I am hoping for if I ever had my own restaurant--be it just a sandwich and soup take-out, that holistic approach should be followed... After all, taste is a sense that is rather social, isn't it?

Unfortunately most of the Chinese restaurants are doing exactly the opposite. The past weekend I dine out with my family in a local Chinese restaurant. Taste-wise the food is OK, particularly when you consider the price. However you need to wait for more than half an hour in a cramped doorway interfered by waitresses cutting your way from time to time. And once you were seated, you need to finish the dinner in a very noisy environment in a fast paced manner. And not to mention that whenever you ask for something the waitress will reply by saying nothing but showing you her face like that of a horse... Oh well, Chinese has a very different philosophy--with good food and price, your customers will keep coming back.

Cost control... that's exactly an important thing that is missing from the Culinary Artistry, which is a collaboration of more than 30 leading chefs, in terms of designing a menu and the holistic dining experience.