Fat Guy

Our waiter did say, as part of his opening speech, that the chef's tasting menu changes daily. When I asked him how much it changes, he indicated that at this point they were tinkering a bit from day to day. So it's certainly possible a couple of courses were different the day before, and surely it will evolve over time. But it's not like they're going to have a lot of repeat business in the next couple of months so I imagine the basic outline of the menu is set for awhile. There's a table each to the immediate left and right of the entryway from the bar area (the north end of the dining room). From where I was sitting on the upper deck, these tables looked undesirable, because the flow of foot traffic going by them was heavy and the people milling about near the bar were so close to the people sitting at those tables. One guy with a particularly loud voice at the table to the left of the entryway complained to his tablemates about it on several occasions. On the upper deck, the two-top closest to the north end of the room also has a foot traffic problem, from the food runners bringing out food. I felt almost as though every plate was being shown to that table for inspection on its way out from the kitchen. Meanwhile there is a ton of space uselessly devoted to a bar area for a 64-person restaurant. This seems like an odd planning decision. I can't imagine they're looking to make the bar a major component of the operation. I may be wrong, but I'd think the last thing Per Se wants is to become a place where people meet for drinks when they don't have reservations. So why make half the restaurant into a bar?

There isn't really a "market itself." It's just a bunch of long warehouse buildings that look the same as warehouse buildings anywhere, and there's no shared space where you can see bunch of vendors in one place -- they've all got their own spaces behind closed doors. If you got up in a helicopter, you could get a photo of a lot of warehouse buildings all in the same place, but from ground level there's nothing to photograph. Each vendor is separate and indoors, and to take photos of any one of them you need to make an appointment and get the appropriate permission. It took several weeks just to set up this one visit, and the Mosners are actually unusual in their willingness to be photographed and allow access.

I've sampled two of them. The dish is $36.

Let me post the basic factual data here once more, so it's in the record: LOCATION Ten Columbus Circle Time Warner Center Fourth Floor New York, New York 10019 (212) 823 9335 CHEF/OWNER Thomas Keller DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Eric Lilavois DEVELOPER Ken Himmel, Related Urban Development DESIGNER Tihany Design, New York, NY KITCHEN DESIGNER Tim Harrison, Harrison/Koellner, San Francisco CHEF DE CUISINE Jonathan Benno PASTRY CHEF Sébastien Rouxel WINE DIRECTOR Paul Roberts DIRECTOR OF PRIVATE DINING AND SPECIAL EVENTS Célia Laurent MENUS $150 Chef's Tasting Menu $125 Five course Prix Fixe Menu with choices $135 Nine course Tasting of Vegetables HOURS Dinner: Sunday-Wednesday 5:30-10:00pm, Thursday-Saturday 5:30-10:30pm Lunch: Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11:30-1:30 CAPACITY 64 seats in the dining room PRIVATE DINING WEST: 40 seat private dining room 20 seat private dining room (combined up to 60 seats) EAST: Private dining room seats up to 10 ADDITIONAL Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted Wheelchair access Parking available www.perseny.com

Hmm. I'll have to pull up the episode on HBO On Demand, as soon as Time Warner can get its shit together to make it perform reliably. Certainly, though, the above-described portrayal is totally inaccurate. Food writers, and restaurant reviewers especially, get way too much attention at parties. If you are one, and you get outed, you're usually considered the second most interesting person in the room after the Ivy League power-executive-type woman who was once a stripper. At parties, I try not to let people know what I do, because then all they want to talk about is what great foodies they are ("Oh my god, I'm like such a big foodie. What's your favorite restaurant?") and how much they love the Four Seasons and "Babbo's."

Ellen, from what I saw of the 5-course, it looked like a very strong contender. The portions were definitely larger, and they were also more elaborately plated and presented than the tasting menu items. I think it really depends on your own style and preferences. Probably 90% of eGullet types will want to go with the longer tasting so as to be able to try a greater number of items, but that doesn't make the other 10% wrong.

Not exactly a review per se (sorry); just an early snapshot. And I really don't think Keller has a problem with constructive criticism -- most of the best chefs, the ones who are confident and secure, are eager for feedback other than "Oh, chef the meal was so great you are so wonderful." I doubt he's reading this anyway, and I'm sure I've said nothing he doesn't already know. I spoke briefly to Keller and more extensively to Benno at the restaurant. They seemed very much aware of the life cycle of a restaurant. Keller is not a resting-on-laurels type -- he wouldn't be in New York were that his modus operandi. He could have stayed in California and retired with the reputation as the best chef in America, and one of the top chefs in the world. Keller and Benno are not stupid or egomaniacal -- they know they have work to do. But they're also, I hope, justly proud of where they are right now. To open a restaurant and effectively become one of the top 2 places in New York in your first week of business is no small accomplishment.

Forgive me. I was going by the American Egg Board's terminology, which I see from looking in a couple of pastry books is incorrect. In my (sort of) defense, here's where I got my (seemingly incorrect) info from: http://www.aeb.org/recipes/basics/soft_mer...d_meringues.htm

Visiting a restaurant early in its life cycle is tricky, because no restaurant performs anywhere near its potential in its first week (or month, or even year) of business. Still, over the course of many openings and evolutions, one develops a fairly reliable sense of how to read the signs of greatness. Per Se has as many of those signs as I've ever seen. To use New York Times-speak, the question of how many stars Per Se will eventually acquire isn't really an open one. Whatever the highest category of stars is, that's the category in which Per Se has to fit, though of course that's a reading of potential -- I wouldn't say we had a "four-star meal" tonight, but we had an excellent one in many respects. Eventually, if Per Se evolves as expected and reaches its full potential, it might not even be sensible to rank it with the current four-star crop. I've long felt that the arrival of Ducasse created the need for a higher category, and now there will likely be a second restaurant pushing the edge of the envelope. Aside from Ducasse, nobody is really playing in the arena with Per Se. Rich has given a handy description of the physical space, which is of much less interest to me than the food, so I won't dwell on that very much except to say that it raises the bar in so many ways it's hard to imagine there will be an opening to surpass it anytime soon. I had long felt that Chef Keller's major obstacle to competing on the New York scene was the impossibility of achieving anything like the incredible French Laundry setting here. But he has, amazingly, created the urban alter-ego of that setting: just as French Laundry is one of the most endearing country restaurants in the world, Per Se is one of the most inspiring urban settings imaginable. (There are, to be sure, problems with the space: too much smoke emanating from the fireplace, a poor allocation of space between the bar and dining room such that the dining room despite its low seat-count has at least three undesirable tables. I hope there's a way to combat at least some of that.) There were certainly some irritating service glitches -- very, very irritating -- though it would be unreasonable to bitch and moan about them with great specificity on day 3. The stars of the show -- our waiter Rudy, the cooks in the kitchen -- gave outstanding performances. The supporting actors aren't there yet. The current Chef's Tasting Menu is heavily oriented towards French Laundry greatest hits. This is probably a good business decision -- for now -- for a number of reasons: the kitchen can reliably produce these dishes; the signature items carry the French Laundry reputation with them; and some of those dishes happen to be excellent. At the same time, that strategic decision was disappointing to me. It felt as though a large chunk of the menu I had tonight was duplicative or nearly duplicative of the menu I had in California something like 5 years ago. The repetitive aspect was exacerbated by a sense that the French Laundry sensibility, which already felt a bit long-in-the-tooth way back when, needs an injection of modernity in order to achieve a position of dominance against the competitive backdrop of New York. I thoroughly enjoyed the first four courses we had. As in, I was blown away by them -- I did not expect to be getting food that good at this stage of the game. "Oysters and Pearls," perhaps the best known French Laundry signature, has been improved since I tried it in California. My problem with the dish then was that it was a double dose of slimy textures: the oysters and the tapioca pearls. But the sabayon quotient has been upped, giving the tapioca more of a creamy polenta-like texture. The balance of textures was right on, as was the use of salt. It's almost insulting to say main the ingredients themselves -- the oysters, the Iranian ossetra caviar -- were first rate. You can just assume that about every ingredient that went into tonight's dinner. As Rich mentioned, you get a choice on course number two: "Degustation de Pomme de Terre" or foie gras torchon. The $20 supplement for foie gras seems tacky on a $150 menu. I'd much rather see the restaurant charge what it needs to charge to be able to offer this choice without the intrusion of this particular picayune economic decision. Ironically, the potatoes are the better dish, though both are outstanding. The potato dish consists of a Yukon gold potato puree, black truffles, and little chunks of new potatoes. I doubt the dish could ever be improved upon -- it's a beautiful expression of the ingredients. The foie gras is less interesting; it's just an excellent torchon with some frisee, and a bit of spiced fruit. (Also some brioche from Per Se's by-far-the-best-in-a-New-York-fine-dining-restaurant bakery -- all the bread products are amazing, as are the two varieties of butter from small producers in Vermont and California, and that's a good thing because the actual menu portions are so minuscule that the only way to develop a sense of satiety is to go heavy on the bread-and-dessert carbohydrates.) Also spot-on was the black bass, a simple filet cooked just right, with a pickled shallot sauce. Simple but superb. The lobster "macaroni and cheese," in which the macaroni pinch-hitter is orzo and the cheese is mascarpone, contains Chef Keller's signature butter-poached lobster. My only concerns with the dish are that at this level of dining the crappy flap of meat at the end of the claw should be trimmed, and I found the dish overall difficult to extract from its little plate. (While we're on the subject of plates, Per Se has some of the nicest I've ever seen -- I was particularly charmed by the fish plate, with an eye-shaped depression in the middle. It would be nice, though, to see some stemware to rival the china, rather than the same old Spiegelau stuff we can all order on Amazon.com for five bucks a stem.) The meal didn't sustain its momentum all the way through. The last couple of savory courses -- rabbit and lamb -- were underwhelming, in part from a conceptual standpoint and in part because the kitchen was obviously getting a bit stressed. I felt the cheese course was borderline embarrassing -- major improvement and rethinking are necessary there. The pastry kitchen, for its part, is certainly accomplished, but the decision to put a funky tasting lemongrass sorbet in the intermezzo spot was not a particularly wise one (it didn't cleanse my palate at all). Redemption came in the form of the primary dessert -- the "tentation" of chocolate -- and also an amazing petits fours selection including macarons of the highest order I've ever tasted. Chef Keller and his extremely capable chef-on-the-scene, Jonathan Benno, deserve a hearty congratulations for coming so far so quickly and for bringing Per Se to New York. I'll check back in a few months to see how progress is coming along. In the meantime, my suggestion is as follows: for now, if Per Se represents a splurge for you, hold off on going. Openings are for rich people, and for those who can get rich people to pay for their meals. Work towards an April or May reservation -- the smart money is on the restaurant really kicking ass by then.

It's not clear they've actually chosen a new reviewer yet, unless I've missed something (which is always possible). Presumably there will be a formal announcement of the new reviewer once the deal is closed, but the new reviewer won't actually start writing for a month or two after that announcement is made. Traditionally, the new reviewer takes a few dozen meals to get up to speed on the general restaurant landscape, and also to eat the meals for the first couple of reviews. Assuming also that Amanda Hesser is going to do interim reviews, it could be a trial or it could be strictly an interim position. Certainly, the Times would have to drop the anonymity pretense once and for all if it went with her as a permanent critic, whereas for an interim critic there's more flexibility in terms of the standards. I also wonder if it's something she'd want. I think there are many talented food writers who would enjoy writing restaurant reviews for the Times for a couple of months. But why would someone like Amanda Hesser want to do it week-in-week-out for 3-5 years? Given her high profile and successful books, it would be a step down for her, I think.

The latest information I'm getting from a variety of restaurant people and observers is that we will be seeing Amanda Hesser as the next interim reviewer. That, at least, is what many of the major restaurants are telling their staffs now.

Last time we checked in with Alastair Bland, he was Going Wild in Urban America, eating a diet of figs and gathered foods for forty days and forty nights. Now, having survived the ordeal somewhat intact, Ally is making those figs into wine. Not just figs, either. Ally Bland can make wine out of anything. +++ Be sure to check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles (most every weekday), hot topics, site announcements, and more.

I had superb meals at Charleston Grill and Peninsula Grill in Summer '02. I'd recommend both as top-flight fine-dining restaurants very much worth visiting (not something I say about the typical small-city hotel-restaurant!). And I loved the Bowen's Island experience -- it's sui generis. Also enjoyed Sticky Fingers. I'm probably going to be in Charleston next month, just for one night most likely, and am planning to go to Hank's. Now tell me about this McCrady's place . . . what's the deal?

John, do you think illustrations were unnecessary per se or do you think maybe this had more to do with the limitations of technology? At the time some of those old all-text cookbooks were written, would it even have been possible to include photos?

Jason Perlow is going to trade places with Carrot Top next week.

John, thanks for reminding me that I need to buy 49 "Chowhound reject" tee-shirts for our staff.

Okay, let me give this a try. This is me as Steingarten waxing rhapsodic about, well, let's do Cheetos for this one: Cheetos are the utopia of crunchy treats. The Canaan of cheese! The Elysium of edibles! The Shangri La of snacks! Unless you prefer the puffy ones, in which case you obviously hate life.

I don't think that's even a remotely fair interpretation of and reaction to what kpurvis said. She's simply detailing the realities of producing a food section week-in-week-out. Throughout history, determinations of quality in writing have been made after the fact -- sometimes hundreds of years after. This shouldn't be surprising, and we should be thanking her for her forthright and revealing comments rather than trying to turn this into a claim about her competence. Nobody I know of questions her writing ability or editing ability -- including the James Beard foundation. As for the demand for specifics, that should come as no surprise. That's how eGullet works. Really? I'd be interested in testing that claim from a number of angles. For starters, who is this "average Joe"? Does he read the Chronicle? The Chronicle as a whole should be focusing on the needs of its audience, not the needs of an abstract demographic average. Assuming an average-Joe contingent within the Chronicle's audience, is that the contingent that cares about food coverage? Or is food coverage generally going to appeal to the higher end of the demographic? What's the reason for being in touch with the average Joe? Isn't that the job of Zagat? Food writing -- like writing about art, music, etc. -- is supposed to be informed by an expert perspective, not by the perspective of the average Joe. More importantly, what's so out of touch about the Chronicle's coverage? Let's look at the digest of last week's food section content that was posted here on eGullet: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=36561 "This week's San Francisco Chronicle features 5 of the bay area's Rising Chefs, 2004. Michael Bauer introduces the piece which includes contributions from the rest of the food department. Each chef is young--under 32 years, all from a wide variety of culinary sensibilities, the list includes a husband and wife co-chef team. Each chef and his/her restaurant/food style is profiled; favourite dishes are listed with a recipe for each: molasses-grilled duck breast, ratatouille stuffed calamari, malaysian lollipop lamb, for examples. a round-up of rising chefs 2003 is included in piece." There's a package on cast-iron cookware. There's something on microwaving crab. There's a tasting panel on nonfat yogurt . . . Looking on the Chronicle's Web site, there's a review of a pizzeria by Bill Daley. The place serves pizza, pasta, and flatbreads. The average Joe loves that shit, doesn't he?

(Terror strikes the heart of the quail-hen community at the thought of having to produce enough eggs to support an eGullet quail-egg eating competition)

Tony, how come you let Eric trade with a cardiac surgeon but you always make me trade with the transvestite hookers on Ninth Avenue? That's totally not fair, though some of those girls can really write.

Those are the results I've had with my roaster, with a Hearthware, and with already-roasted beans. I have yet to make a non-sucky cup of espresso from a non-espresso roast.

I've tried to make espresso from regular coffee beans and the results have not been good, even when I've roasted them dark myself. Espresso, for me at least, comes out much better when you make it from an espresso blend.

Fifi & Mark -- Restaurant reviewing is a relatively minor area of food writing, and presents a special set of concerns. In general, though, I don't think advertising constrains food writers very much, except in the general sense that you have to write stuff that people want to read so that advertisers will buy ads. Amy -- I see the problem in many cases as being exactly the opposite. Food writers aren't out of touch; they are too self-consciously in-touch -- aggressively populist to the detriment of their subject matter. Where are you seeing food writing that doesn't consider the average Joe? Katherine -- I think that's changing. Food is in right now. Some editors may not have a clue how to do food coverage, but I think most at this point understand that it's something that the public wants. Amy again -- Whatever knowledge is relevant to the job. A restaurant reviewer should be an experienced diner, someone who tests recipes should be well versed in recipe testing, etc. TPO -- Most newspaper food writing isn't done by freelancers, so there's less selling on that front than with magazines and books. Of course, within a newspaper's staff, there is selling of a different kind.

I think the focus on English-language instruction is misplaced. There's no shortage of young people with excellent language skills. And there are many writers today who speak with much greater clarity than we ever saw in the affected food writing of old. While there's a lot of crap out there, the best food writing today is as good or better than it has ever been. If I had to list a few of the general problems with food writing today, they would be 1) a lack of good editors or any sort of institutionalized mentoring process even at the better newspapers, 2) an emphasis on pandering to readers instead of trying to teach and inspire them, and 3) a lack of basic culinary knowledge among too many food writers: restaurant reviewers with little dining experience, etc.

I think I may have mentioned in the course materials that my personal preference runs towards letting the butter go a little towards brown before I add the eggs. So you'll find that the omelettes I make for myself run similar to you description of "it came out near perfect, but just slighty browned on the outside. The inside though was so fluffy and delicious!" I like the slight nuttiness that comes from that departure from the textbook method. I think you'll find it rewarding to make an omelette by the book, but you may very well find yourself going back to your earlier result by choice.