Fat Guy

I don't find this line of argument particularly compelling. The author is distracted by form and misses the substantive differences between what Adria, Blumenthal, et al. do and what "junk-food tactics" really are. Adria's commitment is to excellence, creativity, and the culinary avant garde, not to corporate profitability. What makes junk food junk isn't that it's manipulated, but that it's manipulated to a bad end. The author realizes that "No cooking is 'natural,'" but then draws the wrong distinction between the kind of cooking she seems to like (presumably local, seasonal, kind to the birds, fishes, and flowers, etc.) and the cooking of someone like Adria: "as trend-setting chefs and the food industry keep widening the gap between raw ingredients and finished food . . ." But that's not it. There can hardly be a wider gap than between wheat and bread, milk and cheese, grapes and wine. Transformation is essential to cuisine. Adria is simply practicing unfamiliar transformations. Thus, to blame Adria for the presumed end result -- "the consumer's ability and desire to create tempting, nourishing food at home continues to atrophy" -- is nonsensical. The conversation never gets there. In addition, to cut through the false logic, one needs only look at those who read Adria's cookbook. Not a non-serious cook among that crowd. It's also highly presumptuous to say that Adria has never questioned "where this industrial food aesthetic might be taking us." By all accounts, he's an extremely thoughtful guy. If he hasn't thought that issue through, I'll be shocked.

Marian Burros has more insight into food in her pinky than three of William Grimes -- she's a pivotal figure in the history of food writing; can the same be said of Grimes? -- and I fail to see any flaws in her journalistic conduct, which I consider to be impeccable (despite the gratuitous swipe she took at me a few years back!). Sure, she isn't the best person for the restaurant reviewing position. She's not supposed to be. She has an assignment: to bridge the gap between full-time reviewers. Implicit in that assignment, I think, is that she's not supposed to rock the boat or be particularly gregarious. I believe she's succeeding at her job.

F: Get the assortment of 6 crudo, the antipasto with the 3 oily fish (sardines, anchovies, mackerel), the spaghetti with lobster, the weakfish entree, and anything that's special freshly caught and local. All the whole fish are nice, especially the branzino, and the Long Island scallops are terrific. Skip the prefab vegetables bullshit.

Because it's her job. Her bosses at the Times said, "You're going to review restaurants until the compromised inexperienced novelist starts handing out stars like it's the end of the world," and she's making the best of a position she obviously isn't crazy about being in. To some extent she can pick and choose her reviews, but Casa Mono is an important blockbuster restaurant that came up on her watch, and she had to review it. So, she did her best and decided to note some of her culinary preferences. I don't think a reviewer has an obligation to like everything, or even to try everything. The primary obligation a reviewer has is to write good reviews. Her review isn't compromised by her preferences: she seems to arrive at a logical conclusion and a sensible star rating based on a reasonable sampling of the dishes. Beyond that, it's a well written review. Obviously, Burros's primary areas of interest are consumer, safety, nutrition, etc., issues. Her major claim to fame as a food writer is that she brought many of these issues to the fore in food writing. The mad cow quip, though I disagree with its basis profoundly, is her way of trying to introduce a global issue into her review. I don't have a problem with that, even though I think she's wrong -- it's a time-honored tradition among reviewers of all kinds to use reviews as platforms for related commentary. As for the general attitude of squeamishness, again I reject it completely but think it's within the legitimate spectrum of opinion.

I think it's safe to say that won't be his best! Best and favorite are two different things, as my good friends the Zagats have so often pointed out. I think, judged by the standards critics use to judge restaurants, Babbo is pretty clearly Batali's best. The food is the most sophisticated, and it's the most ambitious in nearly every regard. To use the language of stars, Babbo is his three-star restaurant. The others are two- and one-star places. (Otto actually managed a two-star rating, but it's really an excellent one-star.) My personal favorite, however, by a wide margin is Esca. Dave Pasternak is one of the most serious fish guys in the country, and the quality of product at Esca is phenomenal. Some of the fish there are personally caught by Pasternak and others are best-of-kind. I could eat crudo and pasta at Esca all day long.

Also, just another quick point on the Observer piece (from the part having nothing to do with any of this): Yes, that would be quite offputting to see, since Judd Nelson wasn't in Fast Times. Perhaps the writer was thinking of Judge Reinhold.

Some discussion of this in the Observer today (scroll to end): http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/offtherec.asp One quibble: Whatever the source of those "Internet rumors" was -- be it MediaLife, Gawker, eGullet, or someplace else -- it should have been named. Just as it would be improper to cite the New York Times as "newspapers," citing an online source as "Internet" is tantamount to not citing the source at all. Unless a source asks to be protected or there is some other compelling reason not to name the source, credit should be given where credit is due.

I enjoy dining at Eleven Madison Park, but I also find it a frustrating, imperfect restaurant. I'm speaking mostly in terms of the cuisine -- I've had some fabulous food there, and the desserts are wonderful, but it has been overall uneven. I certainly agree that the room is stunning and the service is excellent, though I think the wine list is weak. In terms of achieving what it sets out to achieve, EMP is full of unrealized potential. Nonetheless, I've always enjoyed my meals there and it's a restaurant I use once in awhile if, for example, someone is taking me for a business lunch or I know I'll be dining with someone who has unadventurous tastes in food but will love the room and the service. During Restaurant Week, especially, it's a great place to go because the meal offered is so generous. But at full fare, EMP is my backup to Gramercy, Union Square et al.

I wonder if the allure of "playing to the peanut gallery" is a factor behind some of the criticism of Ducasse. The critics are the peanut gallery.

Anybody been? The review in New York Magazine, by Adam Platt, makes it sound pretty awful. Has the whole Latin-theme-park restaurant trend finally run out of steam? With the exception of OLA, there hasn't been a good opening in this category in ages. One error in the review: As far as I know, Chicama was the second restaurant in that space. The first was Jonathan Waxman's ill-fated Colina. (I think someone computed that Colina received half a star from the Times, Post, and Daily News . . . combined.) From the Post:

Surely this is a step down from HoJo's!

JB, I don't think we need to go down the path of repeating what's already been written so many times: anybody can simply scroll back and read the posts where several of us have repeatedly said that it's perfectly legitimate to criticize Ducasse, to not favor the food at his restaurants, etc. If you can't see the painfully obvious reality that there's something else going on here -- something that moves beyond criticism into agendas, politics, and truculent ignorance -- I don't think there's any way to help you see it. As your sole self-proclaimed mission on these Ducasse threads seems to be to engage in a one-man flamewar, I can't really see the point in addressing any more of your arguments.

Nobody here has tried to do that, except for the various straw men you keep trotting out.

Hat sashimi.

I'll eat my hat if he takes the job; in fact my best sources have said he's not going to do it. I'm still inclined to believe it's going to be McInerney as per previous reports.

I've read (and written) too many restaurant reviews to believe I can ever agree with anyone else 100%. For example, I've long felt French Laundry is overrated -- a minority opinion even within the group of people I trust most. And I'm constantly surprised by divergent opinions among people I assumed would agree on basic points; meal-to-meal variation can't possibly explain it all. So I'm not surprised that there are people out there who have negative impressions of Mix (maybe they had a bad meal; maybe they just don't like that style; maybe it's a -- ahem -- mix of factors), and I'm also not entirely surprised (well, I guess I'm a little surprised) that there are people out there who don't think ADNY is a great restaurant. But the heaviest criticism of Ducasse's restaurants is so shallowly agenda-and-ignorance driven, so ultimately unrelated to the actual food being served, and so hilariously predictable, it doesn't even deserve the title of "opinion." It's something that gets processed lower down in the spinal cord. Those who form the community of restaurant reviewers have become increasingly out of touch with the community of experienced diners. The kind of experience one gets on the job as a working reviewer is no substitute for the education someone like you gets as a customer and connoisseur, Felonius. Like you, I find that my opinions and experiences are far more closely aligned to those of eGullet-level customers than those of the members of the restaurant reviewing community. I'd also place, in the camp of people I tend to agree with about restaurants, the group of non-restaurant-reviewer food writers like Jeffrey Steingarten and Alan Richman. Steingarten has given high praise to Mix. Richman, when I was pretty much alone in the US media as an advocate of ADNY, was the one serious food writer who sent me a letter of support. The Ducasse restaurants are something of a litmus test in this regard. It's not necessary to like Ducasse's cuisine -- that kind of overall opinion is too subjective to legislate -- but there's a level of disrespect beyond which one's own credibility, rather than Ducasse's, must suffer. This is especially true among critics, who have an obligation to maintain a certain degree of detachment and to rise above the kinds of political and cultural objections to Ducasse that permeate so many of the reviews.

I think I need to rent Bamboozled tonight.

The burning question is will it be better or worse than Cats?

Andy Lynes saves New York, in today's Daily Gullet . . . +++ Be sure to check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles (most every weekday), hot topics, site announcements, and more.

We should do it every Sunday.

Aha. Okay, so ordering a calzone there is like ordering a whole pizza. There's no slice equivalent. Never seen that before. Never even seen it at Di Fara, to which I've been about a dozen times. I'm a keen observer of my surroundings, as you can tell.

That's the standard calzone size?

I guess both of them were kind of special-order items because both the porcini and the broccoli di rabe are special items. I think the artichokes are listed on the menu as a "special item" too. Calzoni themselves aren't special order items, however; they are listed on the regular menu. Sorry for not being clear: I was referring to the size. In the photos, what you got looks like a calzone sized for a group, as opposed to a calzone that one person would typically order. If so, the ratios among the ingredients may have been non-standard.

Some comments, just from listening to the reports: - It seems to me that tasting a plain cheese pizza after all that other stuff is the equivalent of putting the white wines at the end of a wine tasting. Comments like "least interesting" are bound to occur when you sequence the flavors that way. It might make the most sense always to try plain cheese first. - Was that calzone a special-order item? I ask because Sam raised an objection to crust-to-filling ratio, yet that comment might not apply to the standard calzone (assuming this one was not something served every day at the establishment). - Did Dom discuss the exact nature of his cheeses? I believe one of them is buffalo. - My and Ellen's contribution to this endeavor is going to be that we will lead a trip to New Haven, but not until summer.

For those of us who don't regularly read Gourmet (and who can't remember the name of the new guy writing the reviews), can you give a few choice quotes?