Fat Guy

(This topic continues on the Gramercy Tavern 2008 topic)

(This topic continues the Gramercy Tavern 2007 topic) Tonight I attended a Michael Anthony dinner at the new Astor Center. I've posted about the event on a separate topic, however the event also caused me to reflect on my 2007 meals at Gramercy Tavern and how much the restaurant has come along. Mike Anthony has been the chef at Gramercy Tavern for about a year now (assuming you count from when his menu came into play as opposed to his hire date), and I think the restaurant is better now than it ever was. More importantly, though, it's a different restaurant. Without fanfare, Mike Anthony has transformed Gramercy Tavern into a local-product-driven restaurant. In the past, Gramercy Tavern did of course use plenty of produce from the Union Square Greenmarket, but it was largely employed as decoration. Now, while there are of course still imports here and there on the menu, the cuisine of Gramercy Tavern is built around a much stronger regional concept. This isn't being done in the overly self-conscious "locavore" sense but, rather, in the service of flavor. Most likely this non-ideological approach, combined with a reluctance to scare old-time Gramercy Tavern regulars away, not to mention Mike Anthony's generally modest disposition, is why Mike Anthony hasn't been telling the story all that loudly. Yet the cuisine of Gramercy Tavern today bears virtually no resemblance to what came before. So now, moving into his second year, I think Mike Anthony's challenge will be to get the word out in a more overt way. The transition is over. The restaurant is still doing a booming business. There's nothing to worry about on that front. So I think it's time for him to start talking more about what Gramercy Tavern has and will become. Gramercy Tavern 42 East 20th Street (between Broadway and Park Avenue South) 212.477.0777 http://gramercytavern.com/

The recent opening of the Astor Center, a multifaceted culinary arts center at 399 Lafayette Street (corner of East 4th Street), is perhaps the best thing to happen to the New York culinary scene in recent memory. Restaurants and retailers come and go, but the Astor Center is an institution in the making. With its gorgeous event space, state-of-the-art demonstration classroom and absolutely first-rate kitchen facility it seems inevitable, given the scope of the project and the flair with which it has been executed so far, that the Astor Center will become an integral part of the fabric of New York City and the culinary world beyond. It's something that all of us who love food can be proud of. Tonight was the first time I'd been to an event at Astor Center (the center is located on the floor above, and is a venture of, the Astor Wines & Spirits shop). The event was titled "Farm to Chef, Field to Table: An Intimate dinner with Chef Michael Anthony and Peter Kaminsky." Mike Anthony, the chef at Gramercy Tavern (for separate discussion of Gramercy Tavern see the Gramercy Tavern 2007 and 2008 topics), invited me as his guest (the retail on the dinner would have been $175 inclusive of everything). The Farm to Chef organization represents a group of small Upstate New York farmers and helps get their products on to the tables of serious restaurants. Most every major ingredient used in the evening's meal was accompanied by its farmer, and between courses we heard from each of them. Author Peter Kaminsky, chef Michael Anthony and a few other folks involved with the event spoke as well. Everything about the event, to me, inevitably invited comparison to a James Beard House event, and the Beard House did not fare well on any point of comparison. The facilities, the service and the general warmth of the Astor Center stand in stark contrast to the ossified and depressing Beard House. The Beard House has long been the only game in town for events of this type, but that has now changed overnight. Today, were I a chef coming to town to do an event I would only go to the Beard House if I couldn't get a gig at Astor Center. I won't go on forever about all the audiovisual trimmings and environmental technology at Astor Center. The website is here and has lots of information about all that if you'd like to follow up. The benediction over the event, by Peter Kaminsky, consisted of a brief reading from his book, Pig Perfect. I thought it was a gutsy move to do a regional New York farm dinner in January. I mentioned to a friend that I was going to the dinner and he quipped, "Four courses of potatoes?" It turns out, yes, there were potatoes in all four savory courses, but those potatoes turned out to be some of the highest lights of a meal that had many highlights. By complete happenstance I sat next to Patricia (Pat) Sheldon of Sheldon farms. She and her husband Albert were the potato farmers. There were no assigned seats. I just grabbed a seat and it happened to be next to her. The Sheldons' farm in Salem, New York, specializes in heirloom and specialty potato varieties. Each of the four savory courses had a variety of potatoes incorporated somehow. There were also potatoes used in two of the hors d'oeuvres (they were prepared by Mary Cleaver of The Green Table in the Chelsea Market). The dishes in the dinner ranged from haute to rustic. The first dish was at the haute end of the spectrum: celery root and bacon custard with Adirondack red potatoes, almonds and paddlefish roe. (The bacon came from Mountain View Farms.) This was a superb dish, one of the better Michael Anthony dishes I've had. By the way, all the dishes were paired with wines from Channing Daughters. This course came with the 2006 sauvignon (with the hors d'oeuvres we had enjoyed the 2006 Scuttlehole chardonnay). This one is "Mosaic of Mountain View Farms chicken and rutabaga, chicken liver stuffed prunes and Sheldon Farms Austrian Crescent potato salad." Although the dish was great, I'd have happily traded everything else on the plate for ten of the chicken-liver-stuffed prunes. Paired with the 2006 vino bianco. Going all the way to the rustic end of the spectrum, I think this dish was the highlight of the evening: cotechino (from Mountain View Farms pork) with pistachio, slices of Adirondack Blue potatoes (from Sheldon Farms) and cipollini onions. The dish was served family style, a big platter for each table of six. We only had five people at our table, though, so there was extra for me and the other big guy. This was one of those dishes where you can tell it's what the chef likes to eat. And the potatoes made the dish, providing a nice waxy textural counterpoint to the soft cotechino. This was paired with the 2006 Meditazione, one of the best Channing Daughters wines. However, I think this dish could have used a red. The last savory course wasn't competitive with the previous three. It was braised beef shank meat (the beef was from Manx Station) with la ratte potato puree and carrots. This was the second appearance of Manx Station beef -- it also came out with the hors d'oeuvres in the form of a mini burger -- and I was not enamored of the ingredient. The potato puree and carrots were tasty (particularly the potato puree), but ultimately a dish like this can only work if it's anchored by fabulous beef. Grass-fed beef, sorry, I'm still not a convert. With 2005 research cab. We had a selection of cheeses from Consider Bardwell Farm, which were very good, however there was some lack of clarity in communication about which was which so I can't give a reliable rundown. With 2005 Sculpture Garden, a wine too good to be served with cheese. For dessert, Nancy Olson (pastry chef of Gramercy Tavern) prepared a smoked milk chocolate and bacon tart with creme fraiche. Yes, it worked. Some remarks from Mike Anthony and Nancy Olson towards the end of the meal: Astor Center still has a few kinks to work out, for example the event would have benefited from having a master of ceremonies to improve the flow of all the presentations from the farmers and chefs. But that will come with time. As it stands, this event was impressive, and Astor Center is a triumph.

Mitch, only you can answer what level of experience justifies a 40-minute drive or a day-trip for you, however as posted above the question the trip was designed around was: "Are these places unique and/or superior to the comparable New York City experiences." I believe in the case of every place we visited the answer is yes, and I'm pretty sure that's what the folks who came along for the ride would say too -- possibly in 100% of the cases and certainly in most of the cases. The rest is up to the individual.

White Manna: I believe White Manna is one of those rare examples of a restaurant that cannot be improved. Every component of a White Manna slider is just exactly what it needs to be in order to contribute to the whole. As I've said before, it's as if somebody took a White Castle burger and said "Here's everything that's wrong with the White Castle burger, and here's how to make it great." The burgers start as fresh-ground beef, not pre-made patties. The griddle cook takes a ball (the size of a Swedish meatball) of the ground beef and throws it on the griddle, then taps it with the back of the spatula to press it into a small burger patty. The process starts on the left end of the griddle. Sliced raw onions are placed on top of the burger patty and pressed in. Eventually the rows of burgers migrate across the griddle like advancing soldiers, they're flipped, cheese is added, then the buns are placed on top to steam. The buns are Martin's potato rolls in a miniature size that I haven't seen in stores. Each bun is split and then the top half in inverted so both halves face the same direction. This stack is placed on top of its burger on the griddle. The aromas and moisture waft up from the burgers, warming and seasoning the buns. Then, with a flick of the wrist and a twist of the spatula, the burger is lifted, the bottom half of the bun comes around to where it's supposed to be, and the sandwich is completed. The beef, onions and cheese have by then integrated with one another such that one can't really view them as separate components. The sliders are served on paper plates with good sliced pickles on the side.

Sure, the Zagat statistics tend to be unreliable, but as comparative metrics they're still worth knowing about: I can see a lot of potential flaws with the Zagat statistics, though it's not clear to me why those flaws would argue for underreporting in New York and overreporting in Texas. The more reliable statistics would probably come from the National Restaurant Association. They're more precise and speak in terms of "commercially prepared meals per week." That would include delivery, corporate cafeterias, just about anything other than a home-prepared meal. The problem is that I don't have access to state-by-state and city-by-city data from the National Restaurant Association. I assume they have it but that it's something one has to pay for. If anybody has access, I think the right report to check is "Meal Consumption Behavior — 2000." The summary states "The typical American age 8 and older consumes an average of 4.2 commercially prepared meals per week, according to Meal Consumption Behavior — 2000, a recent report by the National Restaurant Association." That report may have local breakdowns as well. I'm not sure.

I don't have a ton of context for judging ramen, so my views are more impressionistic. I come at this from the perspective of someone who doesn't particularly like the fishy broth at Setagaya. I'm also not a ramen fanatic and have never had what I consider to be revelatory ramen. What I liked about the ramen at Mitsuwa was that everything about it was straightforward, done well, and harmonious. Ramen was not a scheduled food item on the tour. The idea was just to go to Mitsuwa, which I think is worthwhile as a shopping destination. We inserted the ramen because Raji insisted, and I thought it was as good as he said. It may be that the quality of the pork itself is better at Setagaya (as well as, of course, at Momofuku), but everything else about this ramen I liked better. It's nothing fancy. They just make a very rich pork broth, and then they load it up with good examples of the other components of ramen. I wouldn't say go to New Jersey just to eat it, but rather I'd say it's a nice bonus if you're going to Mitsuwa anyway. You can get Japanese groceries in Manhattan but there's nothing that compares to Mitsuwa's scale, selection and quality.

You'll find extensive recommendations on the topics devoted to the two individual restaurants. The menus change constantly, though, so you need to build some flexibility into your plan.

Tommy, we were there with Jim the owner and John the world's leading authority on New Jersey hot dogs. We specifically asked them what was the correct way to have a Jimmy Buff's hot dog and ketchup was prescribed. The way Jim advised us to eat it, the ketchup barely operated as a hot-dog condiment. We started by eating, with a fork, a few of the potato slices from the top of the pile. Needless to say ketchup is the appropriate condiment there. Then, when the sandwich was more manageable and almost ketchup free, we picked it up and ate it like a sandwich. Ketchup seemed to be the standard order of the New Jersey-ites at the shop -- we were assuredly the only non-New Jersey people there.

I'll add a few notes on the places we visited, here and there. Let me start by saying more about Jimmy Buff's in West Orange. There are actually a few Jimmy Buff's locations, and the West Orange one is, I hear, not as extensive as the East Rutherford one. But the West Orange Jimmy Buff's is a seriously hardcore road-food experience. It's not for the faint of heart, not for the dabbler. As Mayur said, the place is downright scary, full of hardened characters. It has negative charm -- it's so un-charming as to be, to me, utterly delightful in its rejection of charm. Anyway, Jim's grandmother invented the Jimmy Buff's hot dog sandwich in the 1920s. As Jim told the story, his grandparents hosted frequent card games at their house and this was what his grandmother served. Eventually, the food overshadowed the card games and people would come just for the sandwiches. So they started selling them for a nickel, then opened a restaurant, and now I believe they have four locations run by the third generation. The sandwich is built on what nobody at Jimmy Buff's would ever call focaccia. I'm sure if you say the word focaccia anywhere within 500 feet of Jimmy Buff's you'll get your ass kicked. They call it "pizza bread," which of course is focaccia. Anyway they take a semi-circle (or, in the case of the small-size sandwiches we had, a quarter-circle) of this pizza bread stuff as the foundation of the sandwich. Added to that, if you get it in the configuration we had it in, is a hot dog, an Italian sausage, peppers, onions and potatoes. Those items are cooked all together in a large rectangular purpose-built deep fryer. These are Raji's photos: There are some pizzeria-type places in New York City that serve a sandwich that's related to this. Interestingly, I've not found a New York City pizzeria that serves it on pizza bread. Rather, the pizzerias all seem to use inferior hero rolls. This probably has to do with inventory issues. The other issues with the pizzeria equivalent of one of these sandwiches are that: first, they tend to use regular fries (usually frozen ones) as opposed to the fried potato slices that crown the Jimmy Buff's sandwich; second, they don't generally deep fry all the ingredients (they us a griddle, which produces inferior results); third, Jimmy Buff's is using exceptional hot dogs and sausages (though apparently the larger East Hanover location has a higher level of hot dog available as a choice); and fourth, the pizzerias don't have the volume/turnover to do the sandwich in a way that brings every element of it to you at its peak of edibleness.

I'd argue that the Super H-Mart comes much closer than Mitsuwa Marketplace. The Super H-Mart feels to me a lot like a shopping center/mall in Singapore (except it's Korean). I'm not sure of the exact number of stores in that shopping center but I'd guess it's in the neighborhood of 30 in addition to the H-Mart supermarket and food court.

One can get great Indian food, yes. One does not have to like buffets. We had the lunch buffet at one restaurant on this tour on this day but that restaurant serves a full menu that's far more extensive than the buffet and there are many other dining choices in Edison. In addition, as has been noted and ignored already, we visited a pastry shop, an Indian supermarket, etc. While I think Moksha as a restaurant alone justifies a trip to Edison, the larger point is that Edison is a comprehensive culinary and cultural experience that's well worth a trip for anybody who takes Indian food seriously. As for whether it's hard to get to, that's subjective, but the objective facts are that it took us 40 minutes do drive there from Raji's apartment in Midtown West (it would take less time for someone living near the Holland Tunnel) and it takes about 50 minutes on NJ Transit from Penn Station plus about a 15-minute walk. I'd rather eat nothing than the burgers at several of the places on that list, but even with respect the good ones the point is that none of them does a burger in the White Manna style. So it's not a question of rather. It's a question of whether or not one interested enough in burgers to make a trip for a unique burger experience worthwhile. The hot dogs at PDT are terrific. Almost as good as what you'd get at the eleventh best place in Northern New Jersey. But again it's more a question of categories. Nobody in New Jersey is serving a Chang Dog. Nobody in Manhattan is serving a Jimmy Buff's dog. To those who don't think hot dogs are worthy of serious consideration, that's a meaningless distinction. For those who are serious about hot-dogs, a visit to Jimmy Buff's is worthwhile. Hackensack, for its part, is quite close to the city and is hardly the swamps. The trip from Hackensack back to Raji's apartment in Midtown was about 35 minutes and it would have been more like 25 minutes to an uptown location. I don't know what a Chinese liquor store means in that context, but what I mean by a Korean liquor store is a store with an extensive selection of shoju. Likewise, at Mitsuwa they have quite the selection of sake. This is one of Raji's photos of one side of the sake aisle at Mitsuwa:

Raji's album of photos from the NJ food tour is here for now.

You can provide all that special-order information when you order online from Domino's, and the specials of the week are presented as well. The issue here for me is that it's not much of a story. For the past few years Domino's has had online ordering, and there has been an order-tracking tool. It didn't give the minute-by-minute updates but it told you when the store had received your order and stuff like that. So this is really just an incremental improvement over what Domino's was already doing. Of course I'd have preferred it if the company devoted whatever resources it used on this to making its pizza better instead.

Those are a few examples -- what we were able to eat in a day -- of culinary experiences that are categorically superior in New Jersey. I wouldn't exactly reduce it to "a good Indian buffet," though. As the descriptions above provide, Edison is an Indian enclave in New Jersey that has no New York equivalent. We happened to eat a terrific meal at one exemplar, however as is painstakingly laid out in the posts above we also toured several other restaurants, a pastry shop, a catering facility and a large Indian supermarket. The point being, if you're interested in Indian cuisine and culture you're not going to find an Edison-level experience in any of New York's Little India neighborhoods. You have to go to Edison. Likewise, we visited one example of a New Jersey hot dog place, but for someone who has an interest in hot dogs New Jersey has quite a few places that are superior to anything I've had in New York City. John's summary up-topic is comprehensive on this point. In general, in the road-food category (White Manna's burgers being another example), there's no comparison. We also experienced ramen that I felt was superior to any available in New York City. In addition to the Indian supermarket in Edison, we visited two different Asian mega supermarkets and retail complexes, one Korean and the other Japanese: not just grocery stores but also dozens of other retail outlets and food concessions (Korean liquor store, etc.). Moreover, it would be a simple matter to design additional day-long tours covering other categories such as Portuguese food and culture in Newark, all sorts of ethnic food shopping, etc. Indeed, I would be more than happy to repeat this challenge over and over again in different permutations.

It's amazing to me that Alex Witchel would question the notion that there's such a thing as a special occasion at a restaurant -- almost as amazing to me as the New York Times's decision to give a platform in the dining section to someone who doesn't seem to know very much about dining. It's self-evident that massive numbers of people dine out when it is a special occasion, and when it isn't. Alex Witchel is the only person I've ever heard question this notion. Even at the most expensive restaurants, there are plenty of people who dine at those places once, twice, even three or more times a week. No, not every one of those meals is a special occasion. It's true that there are some people for whom every meal out at a nice restaurant is by definition a special occasion, simply by virtue of the infrequency of it. But it strains credibility for Alex Witchel to imply that she's such a person. People who dine out all the time and write a New York Times dining section column about it don't get to cry about how little they get to dine out. I have a kid, and I go out a lot less now than I used to. We go to a "nice" restaurant maybe once every other week, and to "home meal replacement" restaurants on several other nights (New Yorkers, by the way, at least according to the Zagat statistics, eat fewer meals out per week than residents of several other cities). Obviously "home meal replacement" isn't a special occasion. But even when we go out for nicer meals it's clear that there are levels of specialness. For example we've been to Gramercy Tavern several times lately. Sometimes it's just a regular meal. Yes, in the reductionist sense, a regular meal at Gramercy Tavern is special for us. But that's not the same as going for someone's birthday. Everybody except Alex Witchel seems to understand intuitively that a birthday is a special occasion and just going out is not. Going out is still special, sure, but it's not a special occasion as such. I also agree wholeheartedly with Chris Hennes: reservationists and servers are trained to ask that question because, if it's a birthday or an anniversary, they want to do something special for you like write it on a dessert plate. That's not an insult. It's called customer service. All in all I think Alex Witchel uses a lot of words to make a simplistic point that also happens to be wrong.

Minor clarification: Alex Witchel is a she, and is the wife of New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich.

Great call, pups. On Sunday I finally bought a pack of this stuff -- 12 ounces (aka single-serving size for the bacon lover) for $5.99 -- and was really impressed. So many of these artisanal bacons disappoint. I was a member of the Bacon of the Month Club for a couple of years and most of the time what they sent out wasn't as good as, say, Schaller & Weber. But this Vande Rose Farms stuff is wonderful. A nice restrained balance of smoke, salt and sweet ham flavors. And I like that the slices are nice and thick. The way I counted it each slice was about 3/4 of an ounce. In other Fairway news, on Sunday I was reminded of why I rarely utilize the deli counter. It's a real shame, because they have some excellent stuff back there, but the management and labor at the deli counter are just abysmal. On this latest adventure, I decided to try all the Fra'Mani products on offer. They proudly claim, on two little signs, that they have six varieties: five salamis and one mortadella. The first two products I asked for triggered lengthy searches by clueless employees and, finally, the claim that they don't carry them. The other problem is that nobody at the deli counter comprehends the Fra'Mani casing. That white bloom is the best part of the salume from Fra'Mani, but if you don't intervene quickly they'll cut it right off before slicing. In general the Fra'Mani salume in large deli sizes are problematic, though: first, they have all this string around them that's a challenge to get off without mangling the products (which tend to be pretty soft-textured); and second, because the casing with the white bloom is exposed to the outside world (Fra'Mani products don't come wrapped in plastic), it gets repeatedly manhandled during slicing. So it's kind of gross if you keep it on, but if you take it off you lose the best component of the Fra'Mani flavor. In the end I'm going to stick with the individual Fra'Mani salami because I can better control the situation.

There are a whole lot of options in Chinatown. For what you'd pay at Otto or Landmarc you can eat like kings at Congee Village. They even have some private rooms downstairs that I'm pretty sure are appropriate for that size group.

Yesterday, Saturday 26 January 2007, a group of us spent the day dining around New Jersey. I won't give my qualitative impressions yet; I think it makes more sense to hear from our focus group of undecided voters first. But just in brief outline here's what we did: We started at Moksha, the South Indian restaurant in Edison, where we had the lunch buffet. After we stuffed ourselves and paid ($15 per person for the buffet, though with various beverages, tax and service it came out to $23 per person), we met up with Shekar, who directs the operations of the Mehtani restaurant group, of which I've spoken before. In addition to Moksha where we had lunch, the Mehtani group owns several other properties in the same retail complex on Oak Tree Road: a dessert-snack shop called Mithaas, a pan-Asian place called Ming, a classic North Indian restaurant called Moghul and a catering hall called Mirage. On the other side of Oak Tree Road they have a takeout shop called Moghul Express and, behind the shop, the main catering kitchen where they produce the food for weddings and other events (the Mehtani group does about 200 catered events for about 70,000 people per year). Shekar took us through all of those restaurants and kitchens (the group also operates three restaurants in Morristown, which we didn't visit), and sent us on our way with little boxes of Indian desserts. Also in Edison we visited the Subzi Mundi, a large Indian supermarket. Then we drove to West Orange for hot dogs and sausages at Jimmy Buff's. Our resident hot-dog expert, John (his member name here is "John"), met us there along with Jim (the owner and grandson of the Jimmy in the restaurant's name). We ate and had a chance to talk to John and Jim about the history of the place. An added bonus: Jim bought our (second) lunch. From there we headed to the Super H-Mart, which is a Korean supermarket that anchors a Korean shopping complex in Ridgefield Park. Then we drove to Mitsuwa Market, a Japanee supermarket with attached retail stores, in Edgewater. In addition to doing some shopping, we also had ramen at the attached Ramen Santoka concession. Finally, we had burgers at White Manna in Hackensack. I'm pretty sure that's it.

Most good restaurants won't do normal dining-room menu service for groups larger than eight. A few will go up to ten or twelve. But I can't think of a good restaurant that will do 20. There are four main reasons for this: first, most kitchens can't handle that volume of orders coming in all at once, so they need to know in advance what the group will have or at least narrow it to a couple of choices so they can prep (and some restaurants cook off a separate line for banquets); second, for inventory purposes the kitchen needs to limit the options for a group that large; third, service-wise you need a dedicated team to handle that table; and fourth, a group that large disturbs the other customers. You'll probably need to do a private room for that number. In terms of the price point, $100 is slightly lower than a place like Insieme will do for private dining. You might be able to do $110 per person for food there -- I believe that's the minimum, and it gets higher if you do hors d'oeuvres or graduate up to more courses and choices. (Basic information is on the restaurant's website but you'll have to call the private dining manager for full information.) Same with the Modern and a few other Midtown places I can think of: $100 is going to define the lower limit, and I don't recommend doing the minimum at any restaurant. You're better off going down a level of restaurant and going all out. For example if you went to Becco and said you had $100 per person to spend, plus a separate wine budget, they'd give you the absolute royal VIP soigne treatment. I'm not even sure you could spend $100 per person on food there no matter how hard you tried. (A Voce is not geographically near where you're talking about.) The other option, and I've seen plenty of groups do this, is to break up the group into teams and book normally at restaurants. For example you could have five groups of four and send one (or two) to Insieme, one (or two) to the Modern, etc. But if you all want to dine together, same place same time, private dining is the thing.

We had a first-rate brunch at Dim Sum Dynasty today. We arrived shortly after 11am and, based on what I saw, I'd say that's a great time to arrive if you have enough patience to see the process through. The place was virtually empty at 11:15am and there was no evidence of any dim sum. At about 11:25am the procession began, very slowly, and took until about 12:30pm to play out. During that time, bit by bit, the kitchen sent out relatively small batches of just about everything on the dim sum menu, mostly on trays, and then on carts when the restaurant got busier. We were slightly handicapped by the presence of two toddlers, so we couldn't truly settle in the way I'd have liked to, but as a theoretical matter this form of service is very desirable. And I thought the kitchen did a good job of producing the right amount of food for the dining room (the dining room is quite nice, even though the building's facade is not at all promising). In terms of the food itself, it has been covered so extensively on this topic I don't have much to add. Certainly, the place is much better for dim sum than Silver Pond is now, and for most items I tried seemed better to me than Silver Pond ever was. I'd rank the food up with the best New York City places, with the exception of Chinatown Brasserie. The selection is quite diverse -- nearly as diverse as New York City places with a zillion times as many seats, and the experience is less stressful. I thought the variants on the steamed shrimp dumplings (one with pea shoots, one with leeks) were particularly excellent -- as good as dim sum gets. The wrappers were paper thin, the pieces of shrimp were large, the vegetables crunchy and vibrant. In addition to the dim sum items we had some of the pan-fried noodles with mixed seafood: large shrimp, sliced scallops and a ton of calamari. I was bummed because, as the kids started to melt down and we paid the bill and were heading out the door, the chee cheong fun (rice noodle rolls) came out. Those are just about my favorite dim sum items and I regret not being able to try Dim Sum Dynasty's version. It's a reason to go back, though. P.S. the restaurant now has a website: http://www.dimsumdynastynj.com

i mean this is just ridiculous. it's just wrong. tourists and bridge and tunnel crowds dine on friday/saturday ← Phil, in my personal experience of being a regular at several of the best restaurants in New York over the years -- Lespinasse, Gramercy Tavern, Bouley, Nobu, the Modern, ADNY -- I can tell you that not only have I dined at those restaurants, as a regular, on many Friday and Saturday nights, but also that I saw plenty of the other regulars there on those nights. I've worked at law firms and and an investment bank and been out many times, on weekends, with people at the highest levels of those firms. In addition, I spent many days with reservationists and restaurant managers at a range of restaurants when I was researching my book. I saw, time and again, the grayed-out prime-time tables on the book that only managers could open up. This was true on weekends as well as weekdays. There's a subset of business regulars who you don't see out on weekend nights: the ones who live in the suburbs and commute to work in the city. They'll typically dine out on the weekday nights, and at lunches, because that's when they don't have to make a special trip into town. Weekends they often spend at home. Also, on summer weekends a lot of the well-to-do Manhattan regulars go out of town. But the Manhattan residents who are regulars at Manhattan restaurants? During the rest of the year, they go out on weekends. The don't just sit home watching TV. Even those who hypothetically prefer to go on quiet Tuesdays -- and I count myself among that number -- wind up going on weekends for a variety of reasons: that's when their friends are available, that's what the school schedule allows, that's when they can stay out late without having to get up and go to work the next day, etc. In terms of restaurants blocking out tables for regulars, if the demand is there they do it. Some do it with nearly 100% of their prime tables. Some do it with 50%. It depends what they need. Needless to say, Jo Jo and Vong (and most of the places on that list of examples) don't have that problem. They only need to hold back a couple of tables, just in case.

That's true at any restaurant. Lots of chefs and restaurateurs -- at really good places -- have told me that 95% of their customers are there for reasons other than the food. The regulars are often the worst offenders. They're the ones who go to Daniel and get a plate of steamed shrimp -- five days a week. Those of us who bother to be eGullet Society members tend to be in the 5%, but statistically we're freaks. That's why most popular doesn't equal best in the restaurant world. You want to see a restaurant that's hard to get in to? Try going to a Cheesecake Factory on a Saturday night at 7:30pm. You could easily sit in a mall for two hours with a vibrating pager waiting to be summoned to a table. You'll spend less time waiting if you walk in to Babbo.

Of course regulars dine out on weekend nights. That's who occupies the coveted 7-9:30pm tables.