Fat Guy

He is remembering it correctly, but it's academic, not only because it will never satisfy a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard but also because if he did go in and still didn't do anything with the information it's even more negligent.

I believe it was a print shop or some other sort of Flatiron-neighborhood industrial space. The New York Magazine preview story from back in the day said something about it.

It was an actual quote given to New York Restaurant Insider magazine. I have the back issues here if we need to look it up again. But again, we don't need to know whether Bruni visited eventually. All we need to know is that he never wrote about it, not even in "Diner's Journal." If he went there and still didn't comprehend that there was a story, that's even worse.

At one extreme outside limit of the hypothetical, yes. The other extreme is that the review comes out in six months. But neither is relevant: there was never even a "Diner's Journal" report. And while I can see some intelligible reasons for skipping or delaying a full review, I simply can't imagine a reason for a lack of even a notebook entry and, probably, not even a single visit. Not enough change? The menu was completely changed, the whole style of the cuisine was different enough to be recognizable as such even by Bruni. Turning his attentions in other directions? This is his job. There is no direction as important as what's going on at the top restaurants.

We're taking "no visits" on faith, but we're certain he wrote nothing. It's also high-probability faith because this is a restaurant where the service staff is very highly attuned to the faces of the major critics. Not just one in-the-know maitre d' who might be off on a given night. Everybody. I think Bruni's answer, were he given truth serum, might be something like, "I just didn't want to deal with it."

3-6 months? Wow, that's very fast. Is there any precedent for a re-review of a demoted restaurant on anything approaching this timetable? I'm not necessarily saying that you're wrong in suggesting that ADNY should have had a re-review, but it does seem a bit like you're saying they should completely change their established way of doing these things. I'm also curious as to what other restaurant things were going on in NYC during that timeframe that might have been Bruni's plate (so to speak). ← I was not clear. I was saying "Diner's Journal," as in the informal reports, based usually on a single meal, that often precede full reviews. I'd expect that 3-6 months after the chef change. Then, with a year of that, I'd expect a full review if warranted. If there's nothing new to say, there's no need for a full review at all. But if the cuisine has totally changed (as it had in this case), I'd expect the full review within a year of the "Diner's Journal" report.

In terms of "precedent," I think the appropriate level of generalization to be looking at precedents is at the level of general frequency of re-reviews. If someone told us (and was correct about it) that "No restaurant has ever been reviewed twice in a year," then that might be something worth considering. However, it seems less relevant to say something like "No restaurant that had X stars and then got Y stars ever got re-reviewed within time-frame Z." We're not talking about decisions of the Court of Appeals. We're talking about journalism. The important issue, so much so that it makes all precedent irrelevant (even though the precedents surely allow for a re-review), is that there's an important story here. One of the city's only four-star restaurants -- one that many serious observers felt was in a separate category alone with Per Se from all the other four-star restaurants -- lost a star, then changed chefs, revised the menu completely, and among other things received three Michelin stars. It's hard to see how the sole critic at the Times responsible for evaluating the fine-dining universe in New York City could think that's not important enough to justify so much as a "Diner's Journal" mention or even, it seems, a single visit. Likewise, while it's human to be concerned that restaurants might exploit the ability to change chefs in order to get a re-review, that should ultimately be of no concern to a journalist, whose job it is to report (in this case write criticism) regardless of the impact. Moreover, yes, I absolutely think that had Del Posto changed chefs there would have been prompt follow-up by Bruni. Heck, he was prompt in his follow-up of Craftsteak.

What I'd expect is a "Diner's Journal" report in the 3-6 months time frame, followed by a review if necessary. In other words, if the "Diner's Journal" report indicated that there was no reason for a re-evaluation, I'd expect no new review, or at least not one for several years. If, however, there were major changes in the cuisine, I'd expect a review within a year.

How many articles mentioning Thomas Keller have been about Per Se as opposed to French Laundry, Bouchon, his service charge policies, or cooking and celebrity chefs in general? Not that it matters. These big-name chefs are brands. Every mention furthers the brand. Still, Ducasse's restaurant at the Essex House, standing alone, received extensive coverage, including the types of articles that are rarely written about new restaurants, for example William Grimes's feature, "The Perfect Tempest: A Sneak Preview of Ducasse," written before the review, and "How Many Stars Can One Kitchen Take?" written by Florence Fabricant when Delouvrier took over. In any event, since there are plenty of counter-examples, sweeping claims like "it simply wasn't talked about" are pretty easy to disprove, and random demands to exclude every fact that doesn't support the sweeping generalizations ring hollow.

Correct. Aquapod is a Nestle design, available in the six regional Nestle variants: Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Poland Spring, Zephyr Hills and Arrowhead.

Bottled water is under attack from various quarters these days (rightfully so, I think), however I wanted to take a moment to pause and admire the ingenuity of the people who design bottled-water packaging. It seems that every time I go to the supermarket -- as in, every week -- there's some clever new packaging on display, either from a new player in the market (even though most of the players are owned by the same handful of companies) or from an established brand. Who can fail to love the squat, square bottles from Fiji? From Poland Spring alone I've recently seen four new packaging concepts. First, there's the stackable gallon. Well, it's actually three liters. But the shape is brilliant. It's a cylindrical bottle with an indentation in the bottom that corresponds exactly to the cap. There's also a handle-type grabbable area molded into the cylinder. Then there's the new 8-ounce bottle designed especially for children. The cap can't come off, and the water is fluoridated. Then you've got your "Grip 'n' Flip" 700ml "sport-top bottle." I don't even know what it does but it looks cool. And finally, who but the Grinch himself wouldn't love the new Aquapod? I have no idea what it's for, but it's awfully cute. The water people are so much more clever about packaging than the soda people, and I say that knowing full well that they're actually the same people.

Alain Ducasse overall has been named in New York Time coverage more than Thomas Keller, or even Mario Batail. So if New York Times readers are reading the New York Times, they will have heard of Ducasse plenty. Of course, the nine tenths of New York Times readers who don't even look at restaurant articles at all aren't relevant, so when we say "most" it doesn't really mean very much. According to the New York Times archive: -Alain Ducasse: 387 articles mentioning his name -Mario Batali: 332 articles mentioning his name -Thomas Keller: 256 articles mentioning his name In terms of time and subject distribution, of course there are fewer articles about Alain Ducasse at the Essex House post-opening-phase than there were during the opening phase. That's also true of every restaurant. However, Ducasse at the Essex House received a greater frequency of coverage than most even on a long timeline. In part that's because the drama of the opening lasted about three years. In addition, Ducasse opened Mix with Chodorow, bringing his operations back into the spotlight. Then Mix closed, with some controversy surrounding that. And then there were the two chef changes at the Essex House, both of which generated coverage. So, I think it is fundamentally incorrect to say Ducasse was never talked about post-opening, and not at all relevant whether most New York Times readers have heard of Ducasse because the proper standard is who are New York Times readers more likely to have read about in the New York Times. The answer there is Ducasse by a 51.172% margin over Keller. And even I was surprised that Ducasse has had more play in the Times than Batali, at least as a person (much harder to evaluate which articles were about which restaurants, since some of Ducasse's restaurants have his name in them).

I know of nowhere else to get them. There's a link to the product page in my first post on this topic. Maybe someone else also sells Gray Kunz sauce spoons, but I haven't found any source other than JB Prince.

As I've mentioned a number of times, this is the only argument that I find potentially persuasive in support of the no-review position. Were I in the critic's position, I'd be concerned about exactly that: not wanting to encourage restaurants to think that, by firing the chef, they can get an automatic re-review. Then I'd think about it for another little while, consult my editors and trusted advisors, and come out of the huddle realizing that I'm a journalist, this is a story, I'm a critic, this is an important change at an important restaurant, and my job is to cover that change not worry about how my decision to review a restaurant is going to affect the industry. Because once you go down the path of worrying about the externalities you're no longer focusing on journalism or criticism. At that point you may as well say you don't want to write any bad reviews because people might lose their jobs.

It's a simple fact that can be confirmed on Lexis-Nexis, and I did so when I was researching and article I wrote on the subject. I actually had a file of all the Ducasse news coverage from 1999 through 2001 and it filled half a very deep file drawer. The Ducasse opening was a huge media event, not just in food media but in financial and mainstream news media as well. I can post a few dozen reminder examples if anybody's memory needs refreshing. In addition, the time frame for Ducasse is several years earlier than for Per Se. When you say "neither was it heavily blogged...," well, of course not. Ducasse opened in 2000. Who was supposed to blog it heavily? We didn't even start the old eGullet.com until August of 2001 and the serious restaurant blogs came years later. This sort of statement is difficult to evaluate because it's so vague. If by "NY foodies" we mean "Nathan's friends and peers who he judges to be foodies" then maybe you're right. But a definition that takes a broader perspective and includes the older, wealthier core group of customers for high-end restaurants would likely lead to a different conclusion. In addition, since when did "NY foodies" become the standard? Restaurants like Ducasse and Per Se aren't supported by "NY foodies." They attract an international clientele. Moreover, most "NY foodies" probably haven't eaten at Per Se either. The number of people who have dined at either Ducasse or Per Se is incredibly small. And, the New York Times does not consider "NY foodies" to be its audience. It's supposed to be an international newspaper targeted at an audience of highly educated professional, academic and creative types. To that audience, Ducasse is quite relevant, which is why there was so much New York Times coverage of it at the time. Remember, the reason Ducasse's opening in New York was so significant was that he was the world's preeminent chef. Guys like Keller and Batali are local phenomena compared to Ducasse, who operates 21 restaurants around the world (with more combined Michelin stars than any chef in history), plus five hotels, a culinary institute, and a publishing group. The Ducasse organization employs 1,400 people. McDonald's probably receives more press than every fancy restaurant combined, and anybody with a show on the Food Network will get more press than any other type of chef. But in the realm of serious food media, Ducasse got tremendous play. Moreover, it was tremendously controversial play. No restaurant I know of has ever triggered the kinds of reactions that Ducasse did, both at the positive and negative extremes. It was war, if you'll recall, assuming you were following the story at the time. There simply has not been that sort of dramatic tension surrounding other openings. So when Ducasse opened, not only did you have the story of the opening, but also you had the story of the controversy surrounding the opening.

Correction: one four-star review

It was a restaurant that had two four-star reviews, three Michelin stars and, yes, it had been demoted to three stars. The most written- and talked-about restaurant of its time. Which is exactly why the chef change was so significant and demanded a re-review.

Leonard, with respect, I think you've made a simple issue into an unnecessarily complex one. If Ducasse had been reviewed nine times, this situation would have justified a tenth. Ducasse, perhaps one of the top two restaurants in New York, lost a star, then made major changes to its cuisine and kitchen staff. That, simply, demands a re-review, yet indications are that it didn't even earn a re-visit. We can parse the precedents all we like, but the fact remains that lesser restaurants have been re-reviewed for less.

Here are some wrap-up numbers we received from the Big Apple Barbecue organizers. The 2007 event broke all the old records: * 110,000 people attended the event * 64,545 lbs of barbecue were consumed * $75,000 was raised for the Madison Square Park Conservancy * 13 pitmasters prepared barbecue The following were consumed: * 7,420 lbs beef ribs * 8,000 lbs pork ribs * 15,325 cans of soda * 2,900 lbs baby back ribs * 3,900 lbs whole hog * 10,250 bottles FIJI water * 14,800 lbs beef brisket * 7,875 lbs chicken * 19,652 cans of Snapple * 9,400 lbs pork butt * 27,500 hamburger buns * 4,000 slices of pie * 6,000 lbs pork shoulder * 44,000 slices of bread * 4,000 cookie bars * 4,250 lbs sausage * 6,015 lbs baked beans * 3,685 lbs cole slaw * 12,981 cups of beer

I'm not willing to take a hard line on the issue without doing some sort of controlled side-by-side tasting, but I do think some of the general knowledge from the world of American backyard grilling is applicable here. Basically, when you're talking about quick-grilled items, most of what people identify as smoky flavor from charcoal is actually caused by something entirely different. It's caused by liquefied fat and other juices dripping down from the meat onto the coals, burning and then rising back up at the meat as smoke and vapor. This effect can be reproduced by gas grills that have, for example, metal "Flavorizer" (that's what Weber calls them) bars that vaporize the drippings. For quick grilling, charcoal grills are not in my experience better on account of the smoke from the charcoal. They're better because they get hotter than gas grills. The grills at Do Hwa have that "Flavorizer" type effect where the stuff drips down and vaporizes on the surface below then comes back up through the holes in the grill. And they get mother hot. The flame is so high, when set on the high setting, that it almost seems like they removed a safety interlock to get it that way -- however they're such law-abiding citizens that my guess is they just bought the most expensive grills and had them calibrated really hot.

There are both federal and state bases for trade name causes of action. In federal law there are protections under the Lanham Act and each state has unfair competition laws and various related laws and precedents on the books. Some states go by priority of registration of a trade name, others go by public use. This case is I believe in the federal district court in Newark. That court will be looking at both federal and New Jersey law to determine the outcome. If you scroll down here to the entry from West's Law Encyclopedia, there's a pretty good basic explanation of trade name law. This part is a useful policy analysis:

According to the Bergen Record story it was not, however, called Fairway. It was called Cafasso's Market. It seems from the article that the Fairway name was adopted in 1961, around the time the market moved to Fort Lee.

The trend here has been away from charcoal. The place I used to go where they used charcoal switched to gas. I don't know what the charcoal situation is right now in New York City -- whether there are any places still using it or what. Presumably the fire codes make it very expensive to do charcoal, because most every restaurant in Manhattan is on the ground floor of a multi-story building with offices or apartments above the restaurant. In the LA sprawl scenario, by contrast, you can have a standalone structure and not have to worry about that sort of thing. Although, it's by no means cheap to do gas in New York either. Do Hwa only has five grill-equipped tables, because they're so expensive to buy and install in tandem with the ANSUL system. As a sentimental matter I prefer coals. As a matter of flavor, I don't know. I mean, you grill Korean barbecue for about two minutes. It's hard to believe that a noticeable amount of charcoal smoke penetrates the meat in that amount of time. I think the flavor of Korean-restaurant tabletop barbecue comes from the marinades and the maillard reaction, not from the cooking fuel. What I have noticed at some places, however, is that the gas grills don't get as hot as the charcoal ones. But the ones at Do Hwa get incredibly hot.

Perhaps they take pride in the name of the family business. Nothing wrong with that. If I had some small, struggling, long-standing family restaurant in New Jersey named Le Bernardin and the Le Bernardin in Manhattan decided to open near me, I'd try to block the use of the name. It wouldn't matter to me that I could take advantage of an opportunity to pretend to be like the better Le Bernardin. I still wouldn't want them infringing on my trade name. (SundaySous, Liberty Island is part of New York State. The dispute was over Ellis Island. The Supreme Court ruled that most of Ellis Island is part of New Jersey, and that only the main building and five surrounding acres are part of New York.)

We had an impressive dinner experience tonight at Do Hwa, the Korean restaurant on Carmine street owned by Jenny Kwak and her mother, Myung Ja Kwak. Jenny and her mother had an earlier venture, called Dok Suni, which they recently sold after almost a 15-year run. Dok Suni was, in my opinion, instrumental in bringing Korean cuisine into the New York mainstream. At a time when the Little Korea restaurants were not user-friendly and catered primarily to Korean customers, Dok Suni opened in the East Village and tried to bring the Korean home cooking to a mostly non-Asian clientele. Jenny, who was only 19 when she and her mother opened Dok Suni (she dropped out of the Parsons School of Design, where she was studying painting, in order to open the restaurant) is also the author of the 1998 book “Dok Suni: Recipes from My Mother’s Korean Kitchen.” Dok Suni was a terrific restaurant for its time, and one of its regular customers, the director Quentin Tarantino, became an investor in Do Hwa, which opened in 2000. Do Hwa is a much more elegant restaurant than Dok Suni, with better facilities and a more ambitious menu. There’s some of overlap with the dishes you’ll see at the 32nd Street 24-hour Korean mega food factories, but it’s a different species of restaurant. The scale at Do Hwa is much smaller, the cooking much homier, service is not rushed, and ingredients are of high quality. I spent the day at the restaurant, including time in the kitchen, in the course of researching my book, “Turning the Tables on Asian Restaurants.” (In that connection, we were well-taken-care-of guests for dinner, however we ate only the regular menu items as they’re prepared normally.) While in the prep area, I noted that the fish came from The Lobster Place, and the ice cream from Ciao Bella – you’re just not going to see that on 32nd Street. There’s also a legitimate cocktail program – I recommend the soju (Korean sweet-potato vodka) martini, garnished with cucumber slices. Perhaps most interesting, all the cooks and servers at Do Hwa are women. There are some male dishwashers and bussers, but it’s a female shop. It’s the calmest restaurant kitchen I’ve ever been in – calmer even than a Ducasse kitchen. Nobody yells, clanks or panics. And there is overall a feminine, serene feel to the place. Christina Park, one of Jenny’s long-time friends, oversees the dining room along with Jenny and is as gracious a hostess as you’ll find in town. (I made the connection with Jenny because Brian Bistrong, the chef at the Harrison, who I’ve known for ages now, is married to another member of Jenny’s tightly knit group of friends.) We started with Korea’s answer to potato latkes: gamja buchim. These are crispy shredded-potato pancakes but instead of apple sauce and sour cream they’re garnished with sesame kimchi. Why didn’t I ever think of that? We also had japchae, “sesame glass noodles,” with mixed vegetables and just a touch of chili heat. Dukboki, tubular glutinous rice cakes sautéed with sweet-hot chili sauce and garnished with sliced hard-boiled egg was the best-made version of this dish I’ve had (better than Momofuku’s version). The best appetizer, however, was a simple watercress salad with a sweet-spicy garlic dressing – very refreshing. There are gas grills in some of the tables, with downdraft ventilation. They have extremely powerful flames and can cook the meat to a well-browned exterior in about a minute on each side. The quality of the meat is excellent, as are the marinades. We tried bulgogi (thinly sliced beef ribeye) and kalbi (thin slices of short rib). All the little accompaniments were, in my opinion, a cut above the 32nd Street scene: the seven banchan selections were all made with care and there were no cost-cutters in the group (no potato salad), the basket of lettuce comes with nice whole perilla leaves, the miso is hard core. Also tried the ojingo bokum at, a squid dish with a sauce similar to the one that comes on the dukboki (rice cakes). I haven’t done a careful comparison but I get the sense that prices are a couple of dollars more than 32nd Street, but that it’s not a significant uptick. You can check out the menu at dohwanyc.com. Good chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream for dessert, and excellent green tea served in an infuser. Do Hwa 55 Carmine Street (between Bedford Street and Seventh Avenue) 212.414.1224 dohwanyc.com