Fat Guy

If somebody is taking photographs unobtrusively, without flash, why should anybody else find that objectionable? Who cares what that person's motives are? As mentioned above, his name is David Chang. He runs three restaurants: Momofuku Noodle Bar, Momofuku Ssam Bar and Momofuku Ko. At one of those restaurants, Momofuku Ko -- not the other two and not any other restaurant I know of anywhere -- photography is not allowed. Momofuku Ko is the most difficult restaurant reservation in New York right now, and probably one of the two most difficult restaurant reservations (El Bulli being the other) in the world. I'm pretty handy at getting reservations at restaurants, so I've been to Momofuku Ko a few times. I'd like to be able to show you all some photos of my recent meals there, but I can't. Sorry. Those of you who won't be able to make it to Momofuku Ko will just have to settle for the older photos from before cameras were banned. The last time I was at Momofuku Ko, a guy down the counter from me (the restaurant has just 12 seats, all at a long counter) took out a small camera and was about to photograph his food. I didn't notice it. I did notice, however, when one of the restaurant's employees told him he couldn't use the camera. It was an uncomfortable moment and an utterly inhospitable act. This guy just wanted to take some photos of his food. Who cares why? He should have been allowed to. This is a straw man. Since when does taking photos of something make the photos more important than the thing?

Those silicone pot holders are really good for gripping jar lids and such.

nr706, please bring the fryer. karen m, please bring the horseradish. torakris, pleas bring chopsticks. Shoes optional.

I think we should try to incorporate horseradish into every course.

I think I recently saw mention in a legitimate news source of a statistical basis for a claim of increased home cooking, but now I can't find it.

It's hard when you do it with chopsticks. The thing is, there's always something at the farmer's market where the answer to "This looks great but what the heck can we do with it?" is "Tempura!"

The Michael Symon restaurants in Cleveland would probably be the strongest competitors.

Awesome. If you happen to have a huge inventory of oil, please feel free to bring along enough to fill the fryer. If not, we will get oil at whatever supermarket we use to acquire the tempura mix.

Most every year Kris and I wind up producing a tempura item as an appetizer/snack. Does anybody local have an electric fryer or fry-capable electric skillet with a somewhat reliable thermostat?

There must have been variation from table to table. We didn't have any problems with the roasted mollusk items but our hush puppies were burnt. I too thought the fried fish was not great (not to mention utterly superfluous), but I thought the fried chicken (also superfluous) was outstanding, as were the potato salad, cole slaw and biscuits. My favorite items of the evening were the first and last: the little fried clam sandwiches that accompanied the four chowders (my favorite this year was the seafood chowder) and the watermelon dessert (the cookies and brownies were also good, as were the little red plums). One thing that made the watermelon dessert even better was the fact that a gorgeous woman in a bikini top and sarong bottom poured the liquor for us (though the best looking server at the event was a shirtless African-American waiter with a body even better than mine). Actually the whole event felt kind of like the afterlife should be: you get a bottomless glass of spiked pink lemonade and every time you take two sips a woman in a bikini comes and refills it. I was so full by the time the lobster came that I only ate one half of one tail. I mostly just ate the tomatoes, though I got a second wind for dessert. There are imperfections at the Beefsteak too: I've heard a few people complain of overcooked beef. I guess the question is, given the price tag (not that I paid; I was a guest of Waldy, and I also took home the inflatable crab near the front door) and the unlimited booze, is it worth it despite some of the inconsistency that the banquet format engenders? I'd say the Beefsteak and Chowder are more like awesome food-centered parties than they are like meals at a restaurant. Also they'll give you more of anything you want, pretty much, it seems. One guy at our table had two entire lobsters. (The next table over had seconds on the wood-roasted oysters.)

Detroit is a major detour from the driving route I've taken to Chicago from New York City (through PA and Ohio). Toledo is en route, but from there it's about 60 miles north to Detroit one way. Or, if you take a northern route through Buffalo to intersect with Detroit, it adds about 130 miles to the trip. So I think the claim is more colloquial: "West of New York and east of Chicago and not too far north or south of either."

The restaurant is in Midtown, yes, but it's on a forgotten block where I've never seen a lot of foot traffic. Indeed, before coming to SG, I think in a lifetime of living in Manhattan (and years of working in Midtown) I'd never been on West 39th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. I think the restaurant's business may be facilitated by location -- for example, were it in New Jersey it would not be busy at lunch -- but I get the sense that it's a destination place for a lot of folks eating there.

And to Bruni's point, I bet the average Ducasse customer is more likely to complain about a sub-par dish than the average Momofuku customer.

I was just at SG for lunch and the same old strategy still works: show up at about 11:55am and the place is basically empty. I asked the manager if there had been an uptick in business since the Times review and he said yes, definitely. In particular, he noted, the dinner rush is now starting earlier and running all the way through closing. So reservations are essential at all times of the evening.

If anybody local who will be at the Friday Chinese dinner has a good-quality camcorder (doesn't have to be HD but does have to be mini-DV or better) and would be willing to do me a small personal favor, please shoot me a PM.

Isn't Coke made from syrup? I mean if you have a restaurant Coke machine. I bet that syrup could be used, rather than a reduction of bottled soda.

I recently had three of the best dishes I've ever had at Noodle Bar: - Eckerton Hill Farms heirloom cherry tomatoes with candied bacon, cucumber, thinly sliced onion and lettuce. Basically a BLT in a bowl but without mayo or bread. The candied bacon -- made by rendering bacon down to crispy chunks then sprinkling sugar on them while they're still cooking in the skillet -- was amazing, as were all the components. - Roasted wild striped bass with beet jus, plums and pickled shisito. This is a gorgeous piece of bass in a deep red pool of beet jus. (This dish was comped.) - A special of spare ribs from Bev Eggleston, with grilled donut peach chunks and a Momofuku riff on coleslaw. The high quality of the pork was evident despite long cooking and finishing on the grill with a sauce. Just about the best ribs I've ever tasted. A fine marriage with the "Cane and Ebel" red rye ale from Two Brothers.

I recently told Tammy that if need be I could switch from Niles to Evanston in order to organize the Evanston group, but she was many steps ahead of me and had already arranged for someone to act as Evanston coordinator.

Indeed, the first few times people from New Jersey mentioned White Manna to me I thought they were saying "White Manor," which made it virtually un-Google-able. When I finally got taken there for the first time I said, "Oh, it's White Manna!" I had the same problem with the Chinese restaurant Cathay 22 in Springfield, New Jersey. I thought our friends were saying "Cafe 22."

White Castle is definitely older. There are two different but often confused operations currently in business in New Jersey: White Manna and White Mana. White Manna is in Hackensack and White Mana is in Jersey City. The information out there about both is conflicting and spotty, though the New York Times -- which tends to do more fact-checking than the average source -- says White Mana in Jersey City By the way White Manna is in my opinion a good bit better than White Mana, though both are good and both are an order of magnitude better than White Castle.

That's true of most any restaurant. Even a foodie-youth-culture temple like Momofuku Ko is full of people who are only there because it's an in-demand, trendy, hard-to-reserve spot. Pretty much the only restaurants where you're guaranteed a there-purely-for-the-food audience are the ones that are particularly difficult to get to and undesirable in every sense other than the food. So, like, A Fan Ti in Flushing -- you won't find a lot of poseurs there, though even at places like that you'll find a few culinary trainspotters who just want the lamb-eyeball belt notch. But you'll find plenty of pretextual eaters at any trendy restaurant in the East Village, no matter how serious the food is. Meanwhile, while you'll find some rich-stupid-undiscerning people at restaurants like ADNY (and Per Se, et al.) you'll also find plenty who are very serious and well-traveled gourmets -- in other words people who are more serious about food than Frank Bruni. Basically, the notion that only clueless people ate at ADNY is absurd, but Bruni seems to need to believe that. I concur. It's all about contempt for the other. I'd happily subject the ADNY crowd on any given night to a food-and-wine literacy test of some sort. I bet their test results would stack up against those of the clientele anywhere.

Also if any gardeners have assorted fresh herbs growing, it's really useful to have those on hand. All those little things -- herbs, spices and other staples -- really add up and can divert the budget away from the big-ticket items.

Waffles!

Is anybody else staying in Evanston or nearby? I'm going to be at the Best Western University Plaza. I can probably get everywhere by public transportation if necessary but if anybody is staying in or around Evanston with a car (or lives around there) I'd surely appreciate a lift in a couple of instances. I guess please PM me if you meet that description.

I suppose it's possible that they've changed the schedule for summer. I just called the voicemail and it still says beverages only. With most restaurants, I'd say voicemail is far more reliable than anything on a website, but the Momofukus are atypical. It's possible the voicemail message is very old. Who knows? I also remember a while back when they simply started closing at midnight. So they've gone through phases. I was there just the other night but hadn't read the latest posts on this topic so I didn't know to ask Cory.