Fat Guy

Gramercy Tavern opened in 1994.

Just a quick clarification: the New York Times uses a four star system. The New York Times equivalent of three Michelin stars is four stars. You can search the database, but I'm pretty sure the current four star restaurants are Le Bernardin, Daniel, Jean Georges, Masa and Per Se.

I'm working on it, Irwin! Anybody in the US who is interested in trying one of these chickens can order one for thirty bucks from D'Artagnan. Here's the item: https://www.dartagnan.com/item.asp?item=FCBSM102 If those weights reflect the birds Ducasse is getting, my estimate is too low. Maybe I'm not taking head and feet into account.

Bresse chickens come in various sizes, as Lucy has noted on other topics: Poulet de Bresse (avg weight - 1.2 Kg/2.6lb): 4 months Poularde de Bresse (avg weight 1.8Kg/3.9lb): 5 months Chapon de Bresse (avg weight 3Kg/6.6lb): 8 months In American chicken parlance, a "broiler/fryer" would be 6-8 weeks old, as Irwin mentioned. A "roaster" would be 3-5 months old. The Ducasse blue foot was probably around 1 kilo, though that's just a guess. The bird we had at Vonnas was in the Poularde category I think. The blue foot costs the same as everything else at Ducasse. The menu is prix fixe. Any two people at the table can choose it as their entree -- there's no premium/supplemental charge.

We tried the blue foot chicken at Alain Ducasse (New York) recently and Ellen posted about it in the New York forum. Ducasse (via chef Tony Esnault) serves it whole, carved tableside and served for two. It comes in two services. The first service of “Blue foot chicken, crisp and tender endives, sabayon (for two people).” Followed by the second service, the dark meat with an endive marmalade. We've had the Bresse chicken at Georges Blanc and felt the blue foot was dissimilar, in part because of the preparation but also the meat had different character. The Bresse chicken was the most red-meat-like chicken I've ever had, and I wouldn't say it tasted "chickeny" -- unless one recalibrates how one believes chicken is supposed to taste. The blue foot was much more like normal American upscale restaurant chicken but with much firmer flesh and a more concentrated flavor. This was especially apparent in the firm flesh of the breast meat, which unlike most breast meat had deep chicken flavors and a gamy sweetness in the background. I'd be confident that in a blind tasting I could easily pick this chicken over most others I've had. Now of course that may be on account of preparation, but I don't know that any preparation scheme can account for what I found in the meat's essential character. I'm pretty sure the chickens they get are hung and air dried in the walk-in for several days, and needless to say they are cooked with the feet on. I don't know if they come in with the heads as well. In any event, there are definitely some ingredients that get a lot of press but are indistinguishable from generic. I don't think this is one of them. And Ducasse and Keller are pretty fanatical (and well informed) about ingredients -- I doubt they'd be out advocating this product if there was nothing to it. Ditto for Marco Canora.

It's there in the print version. I don't know what the glitch was with the online production of the piece.

I'll tell a little bit here, and then when there's an official announcement from my publisher we can start a separate topic for the impending book. The Fat Guy's Manifatso (working title) grows out of the essay series I did for Salon several years ago, beginning with the piece I wrote called "Fat Guys Kick Ass." It's going to be published by Bloomsbury USA, a great boutique publisher known for taking risks (they published Kitchen Confidential, for example). It's a funny book, yes, about the joys, trials and tribulations of being fat, but it's also a serious book that makes the point that it's better to be fat and happy than thin and miserable. Some of it will be personal essays, some will be more journalistic such as a close look at the facts and fallacies of the so-called obesity epidemic, there will be some hardcore debunking of diet theology and some will be opinion, inspiration, what have you. It should be fun. I'll be done writing it, I hope, in March and it should come out at the end of 2006.

Vin jaune: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_jaune

It was a fun piece to be involved with -- the writer, Kevin Foley, was terrific and really took the time to get inside the subject matter. Vermont Quarterly (we all call it VQ) is the alumni magazine for the University of Vermont, my alma mater -- it's one of the best magazines of its kind, because it's not particularly oriented towards alumni association goals and the production and literary values are unusually high. It has been especially fun to be contacted by so many old friends from college in the wake of this piece's publication.

I haven't noticed any emotional pain -- Doug seems fine, upbeat, not at all distracted. My suspicion is that the Beard House thing was a result of his failure to prioritize -- he's in the middle of an opening, he probably spent two minutes on the Beard project and turned it over to some cooks and then didn't follow through with sufficient supervision. I don't know it for sure, but that's my educated guess. In terms of Country, it's too early to judge, but it seems clear to me that at present the restaurant is having trouble getting its legs. The food, also, is for the most part not recognizable as Psaltis's food (though a few dishes are). So yes, I assume Zakarian -- also a terrific chef -- is heavily involved in the menu and that we're seeing a too-many-cooks dyssynergy situation. Country could, I'm sure, pull it out -- it's too early to judge any restaurant.

The Beard House dinner was poor, though I do believe Mimi's ire is partially fueled by the externalities of the book and controversy. I've certainly had worse meals at the Beard House, probably five or more of them. I'd say this one was somewhat below average for a Beard House event. Doug Psaltis definitely blew it, though. It wasn't the typical irrelevant Beard House audience. This was an invitation-only event and in attendance were nearly all the top cookbook editors from the top publishing houses, plus serious food-journalism luminaries like Mimi, Irene Sax and Barbara Kafka to name a few, plus some hangers-on like me and Doug's girlfriend. So you would think this wouldn't be an event at which a rising-star chef would mail it in. And yet, he mailed it in big time. At 7:30, half an hour into the bad hors d'oeuvres, Psaltis wasn't even there yet. The first seated course was inexplicable: pears and chestnuts on what seemed to be a bad short bread cookie. The course that followed that was in my opinion superb: a soft-boiled and painstakingly peeled egg, a couple of shrimp, cauliflower puree, caviar . . . derivative of a dish I had a couple of times at Mix. Next was a chicken breast from what I thought were extraordinary chickens -- the whole point of the dish was to highlight some fancy chicken with a name, but I don't have my menu with me so I can't remember what it was called. Mine, at least, was moist and very good. The flaw in the dish was that there were supposed to be these roasted seeds in the sauce and they hadn't been roasted long enough to take away their rawness. So those were pretty lame. I didn't stay for dessert -- I had to head out of town the next morning at six. Yes, it was a poor showing. In addition, and far more relevant, the one meal I've had at County has been, overall, fair. A few excellent dishes, but mostly not. We have a separate topic on Country, for those who are interested. That being said, of all the objections to Psaltis the least credible one is that he's somehow a cook not a chef, or that he hasn't earned his stripes. He was the chef at a Ducasse restaurant. In the global culinary pecking order, this is far from a joke. No, it's not owning your own restaurant, but did Gray Kunz own Lespinasse? Has Christian Delouvrier ever owned a restaurant? Do the various three/four-star chefs really own their restaurants in any meaningful sense of the word or are most of them really just employees and on-paper owners of a few percent of non-liquid equity? There are different paths to success as a chef; being given a Ducasse restaurant is one way to the top. For those who went to Mix, ate Psaltis's food and had positive experiences -- you will see several posts on the old Mix topics, not just from me but from some of our most venerable and reliable members like Felonius comparing it favorably to the best restaurants in town -- the train has already left the station on the question of Psaltis's talent or ability to be an excellent chef. The question on the table, for me at least, is why is he screwing up now?

Adam, a thousand thanks for this illuminating report. A question: did you see any evidence of Jewish cuisine? I know that Vilnius (or what Yiddish speakers have long called Vilna) was for a time arguably the capital of Jewish intellectual culture in Europe. I imagine there's not much evidence of that left, but I was wondering.

Correct. The bar room cafe opened first, followed by the fine dining area several weeks later. Same as at Country.

It's not atypical to open in that order: cafe then restaurant. That's how they just did it at the Modern. Perhaps it's the upstairs that's supposed to be family style. That sounds unappealing to me -- prix-fixe fine-dining family style? -- but I guess we'll have to wait and see how it's implemented.

The place on Sixth Avenue at Eighth Street is Gray's Papaya. For whatever reason, Gray's seems not to suffer from duplication as much as Papaya King. The original Papaya King on 86th and Third is consistently accurate in its frankfurter cookery; the 125th Street branch is a train wreck (I haven't been to the 14th Street location -- I'm so out of it I didn't realize it had actually opened). The 72nd Street and Eighth Street Gray's Papaya stores, however, seem to be roughly equivalent to one another.

I think good or very good for the price point is an accurate assessment. But good for Doug Psaltis and Geoffrey Zakarian? No way. These guys are capable of so much more. There seems to be some sort of dyssynergy going on here, at least at this early stage: a lack of focus and coherence; an absence of flair.

I would definitely recommend spending the extra couple of dollars, at either place, to get a fresh-squeezed fruit juice. My standard order is half orange juice half grapefruit juice. I realize the papaya drink is a particular New York tradition, but my drink is a lot better.

Two frankfurters and a medium-sized papaya drink will cost you approximately twice as much at Papaya King as at Gray's. The frankfurters themselves are the same, so all differences are attributable to other factors including plain old psychology. There seems to be a deep need to differentiate among the city's frankfurter joints, even the ones that serve the same frankfurters. John has been explaining for years that most of the top places (especially Gray's, Papaya King and Katz's) source from Marathon/Sabrett. Ed Levine recently wrote about it in the New York Times as well. This need-for-differentiation phenomenon is common in Chicago as well, where so many places use Vienna Beef frankfurters. There is in my experience no clear generalization that Papaya King prepares its frankfurters better than Gray's. On any given day, you might get a frankfurter at one or the other that spent more or less time on the griddle. And it is worth noting, for those who feel longer griddling produces superior results, that at Gray's you can specify "well done" whereas at Papaya King they ignore such requests, seemingly as a matter of policy. So if you're at Gray's and you happen to be laboring under the impression that Papaya King has better frankfurters because they're crispier, for crying out loud just ask for your frankfurters crispier. You can get them as crisp as you like, and they'll cost half as much. The buns at both places seem to me to be either identical or of equivalent quality. Both places toast the buns, or rather they let them sit off to the side on the griddle in order to absorb some heat. The extent to which your bun is toasted is pretty much luck of the draw, in my experience. I'm not sure there's a significant difference in condiments either. Maybe the onions, which I don't get, are slightly less awful at Papaya King. The sauerkraut seems the same. The mustard seems to be similar, if not identical. The only major difference I've noticed consistently over the years (as opposed to having the occasional better or worse experience at one place or another) is that the Papaya King papaya drink is categorically superior to the one served at Gray's. By categorically superior I mean that the Gray's drink is bad and the Papaya King drink is good. My understanding is that Mr. Gray is a former employee of Papaya King.

We were in last night. The space is beautiful, though poorly laid out. The food is, shall we say, a work in progress. We ate in the cafe (the fine dining restaurant upstairs is not open yet -- probably mid-November for that) and the standard was substantially below what Psaltis was doing at Mix and what Zakarian has done at Town. The one superlative dish was “Tiny Squid, Cuttlefish and Soupions with Piquillos, Black Rice and Chorizo” -- probably the best squid dish I've ever had, and obviously inspired by the time Psaltis spent in Spain doing research for the restaurant. There was a terrific panzanella salad as an appetizer, but it should have been a side dish for meat rather than a standalone item. Two fish dishes -- cod and bass -- were uninspired. I guess they were good for $21 entrees -- good ingredients, cooked correctly, nice portion size -- but they were ordinary. Shrimp with rosemary, again good but basically uninteresting (though plated nicely with heads loosely attached). "White gazpacho" appetizer (with a pronounced grape flavor) overly sweet and lacking pizzaz. Two good pasta dishes: an appetizer of canneloni with mushrooms and an entree of "artisanal pasta" with tomato and black truffle -- the latter would actually be worth ordering again. Well-made albeit cold rolls on the table ruined by poor olive oil but later rescued by a disc of imported butter (individually wrapped and labeled). We tried the two desserts recommended by our server -- profiteroles and a mango rice pudding -- and they were likewise tasty but nothing special. I have higher hopes for the fine dining part, and also imagine there could be a lot of improvement at the cafe level. The press coverage claiming the food would be served family style was simply incorrect. There were normal appetizers and entrees, plus some vegetable sides and charcuterie items. I guess those could be shared, but a shared veg does not a family style restaurant make. So I don't know what that was about. (edited to add a little more detail)

It's possible that the restaurant got a very limited quantity in that first shipment -- a couple of days ago was when a lot of American places got their first, very small white truffles via FedEx, and they may only have received an ounce or two in that shipment. In which case, they may all have been spoken for. Although, if that was the case, it should have been explained to you that all the truffles were pre-ordered/pre-committed. Just saying no is not really the way to go.

D'Artagnan has them at $142.50 for a one-ounce truffle. You can mail order them anywhere. I was just in Chicago and was talking to several Italian-restaurant chefs who had just gotten their first ones in, and they all felt this was the best white truffle quality year in recent memory.

Publicity is usually cheaper than advertising, so chances are that comped meals for journalists (which are almost cost-free, like giving away empty seats on airplanes) are going to be one of your best investments . . . if your restaurant is good. If your restaurant isn't good, you can comp until you're blue in the face and it's only going to get you so far: the reputable writers who have any sort of influence (Mariani et al.) aren't going to say your food is good unless they believe it is, and even if you can trick a few bottom-feeders into writing good things about you all you can do is get a few people to try the restaurant once -- if it sucks they're not coming back. A place at the Ducasse level is going to be particularly dependent on comps as a means of getting the word out, because there are only a few media outlets that will subsidize $1,000 meals for their writers, even fewer that will do it more than once and even fewer freelancers who will do it out of their own pockets. In a comp-free environment, only the New York Times, Gourmet and a few other major publications will cover the restaurant. By making the issue of comps into a moral issue, these well-to-do, established publications create a barrier to entry for underfunded newcomers and smaller, alternative publications. (A separate issue that we can explore elsewhere is the hypocrisy of the non-reviewers at these publications taking comps anyway). I do think there's potential for loss of objectivity when writers are dependent on comps. That potential for undue influence is reduced significantly, however, for writers who do a few things. Probably the most important one is to keep in mind, always, that the veracity of your writing is your stock in trade -- anytime the temptation "they were so nice and generous to me, I should write something flattering even though the place wasn't even worth writing about at all" creeps up on you, you've got to remember that you have a long-term relationship with your readers that you'll wreck if you lose your objectivity. (I also happen to think you'll wreck that relationship if you pander to your readers, but that's another issue). Another is to talk about it openly, not necessarily every time you mention a restaurant but, in general, writers who accept comps shouldn't be pretending they don't. (Likewise, reviewers who are identified most of the time shouldn't be pretending they're anonymous.) And it's helpful to have enough of a budget and resources so that comps can't ultimately control your choices -- so long as you can afford to go to any restaurant at least once without the expectation of a comp, comps remain a way to expand your range. And hey, some people are going to discount what you say if you're not anonymous and if you're taking comps. That's life. I just wish those people would take a few minutes to try to understand the arguments, and at least move away from the shallow view that money and recognition are the be-all-end-all issues underlying journalistic objectivity. Because a writer can be recognized and take comps and still produce high-quality, honest work, while another writer can strive for anonymity and always pay with the newspaper's credit card but still be a lousy, unobjective, ignorant, biased reviewer.

Let me try to clarify two points: First, you could have that meal. Every dish we were served was a dish from the printed menu available to all customers. Anybody (you do not have to be a regular, though regulars are given priority) can book the aquarium for a group of 5-8 people for $500 per person, which includes an extended tasting menu plus wines with each course. Typically, when reporting on a chef's cuisine for the first time, I ask to be served only what is on the menu. Once I've worked my way through a menu, I'm happy to experience off-menu cooking as well, in order to see what a chef is capable of. Further to that point, let us recall this part of William Grimes's four-star review of Alain Ducasse at the Essex House: To me, it was interesting to read about Grimes's experience of a dish not on the menu. I never got to have the dish, but it showed us something about the chef's abilities. Second, I certainly think that when a chef has a known writer (or a fellow chef or any of a dozen species of VIP) in the private dining room he's going to provide some extra supervision to his line cooks. Which is to say, I'm sure I experienced the best possible performance of the kitchen on that night. People should know that when critics are recognized (which is most of the time anyway) they are writing about a restaurant at its best -- the version of the dish that isn't overcooked or otherwise technically flawed. That's just the way it is, and I happen to think it's valuable to read about restaurants at their best. It's not like there's any statistical rhyme or reason to visiting two or three times in order to establish a sampling of on and off nights in the kitchen. The point you raise, however, is about comps. I definitely get some comps. A lot of the time I don't even know how I'm going to be billed: I almost always (unless there was a specific press invite) go to a restaurant prepared to pay full freight, sometimes I do, sometimes I get charged the basic menu price for an extended tasting and sometimes I get comped (in which case I leave a gratuity -- and at ADNY that gratuity can be the cost of lunch at Jean Georges). I've probably spent $5,000 at ADNY over the past five years and I've probably had $5,000 worth of comps. This has allowed me to sample ADNY's cuisine far more often than I would have been able to otherwise, and to report on them here and elsewhere, and to bring Ellen along to take photos -- and of course I've enjoyed those extra meals tremendously; I do what I do because I love it and dining is much of the pleasure. But the day I fail to report objectively because I've been comped is the day I retire from food writing. Every chef who extends an invitation or comp to me knows or should know the score: I'll say what I like and I'll say what I don't like.

Interesting that even at the Ducasse level there seems to be a feeling that it's impossible to cook a whole bird of this size all in one go and achieve perfect breasts and thighs/legs. Ditto for lobster. In several fine dining kitchens I've visited, the claws and tails are removed and cooked separately, with the claws being cooked 50-100% longer than the tails.

I believe that in one of the foundational Ducasse squab dishes they use a blowtorch to crisp the skin, so perhaps that method is in use here. I will follow up.