michaelklein

Yep. Brasserie, Rouge, Striped Bass....

That's true. Construction starts after new year's in the rotunda. I wrote this in The Inquirer back in May: First time Eric Ripert came to Philadelphia a year and a half ago, he stepped into the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton across from City Hall. The chef from New York's Le Bernardin did what everyone does: looked up at the 140-foot ceiling modeled on the Pantheon and did an oh-wow. Last week, Ripert and hotelier Craig Spencer struck a deal to place a Ripert restaurant in the lobby. Don't call yet for a rez - it's nearly a year out as part of a multimillion-dollar renovation. Though name and concept haven't been nailed down, it will be "sexy, modern, sophisticated and casually elegant - keeping the grandeur of the dome but at the same time creating an intimate space," Ripert said Friday. Unlike his formal New York seafood restaurant - where adherents drop $107 and up for the tasting menu - this will be a "good value in terms of price. " He said he'd export a chef from Le Bernardin to run the kitchen. Ripert (sounds like "repair") consults for Ritz-Carlton, with two restaurants in Grand Cayman, and just announced a similar project at the Ritz-Carlton in D.C.'s West End.

About the only place you'll be able to taste David's cooking will be at his house for now. I called him. He said he and Mark Bee did speak about a job. But it was for N 3rd, not Silk City. They couldn't agree, though; David's high style simply won't mesh with N. 3rd. ← Silly me. I clearly misunderstood David when he emphatically told me that he was not taking a job with Mark Bee. Katz just started at Silk City. Peter Dunmire has moved to N.3rd.

About the only place you'll be able to taste David's cooking will be at his house for now. I called him. He said he and Mark Bee did speak about a job. But it was for N 3rd, not Silk City. They couldn't agree, though; David's high style simply won't mesh with N. 3rd.

It's "The Happening," the Night Shyamalan movie starring Mark Wahlberg. All the stands are props.

The prices of the plats du jour indeed are "pour deux."

Verrrrry innnnterrrresting. Today's Inquirer contains the same Associated Press story in its feature section. Wonder why the Inky used an AP story about one of its own staffers instead of doing its own story? ← Because: When the paper publishes a review of a book written by a staffer, for example, it uses a wire review or a review written by a non-staffer. (Capaneus understands.)

It's in the story: Di Bruno's sells foie gras. They also have a collection of pates that are labeled, "Does not contain foie gras."

I usually take rt 30 to the shore, but drove by Mr Bills 2 weeks ago and noticed it looked very different. I was wondering if it changed hands or such. Since I liked Russ's prior operations I will have to give it a try. The big question Michael is why this never made your column, usually this is where I find out such information. ← I scooped myself. It's in today's column, though I had a squib about it about two months ago.

Russ Cowan still owns the business and the bricks. Bill Shapiro, who used to own BLT's Cobblefish, and Harry Winnick, who was in auto leasing, are leasing it from him with the option to buy. Cowan recently opened a similar deli operation in Winslow; it's called Mr. Bill's, a former rundown hot dog stand on Route 73 near ACXway. He said he intends to operate it a few months and then sell it. Guy has wanderlust. He now says he gets more thrill out of setting up these places than he does running them day to day. (Really good stuff at Mr. Bill's, by the way. There's the familiar pastrami/corned beef, plus homemade ice cream. He uses Famous 4th St cookie dough in the cookie dough ice cream.)

Wasn't Jose, whom I know. In fact, I brought up the issue when he stopped at my table. He basically shrugged.

I should have chosen that adjective more precisely. The baby at Tinto was shrieking.

Should a restaurant allow a couple to slide out a chair, clip a boster seat to the wooden table, and plop a squealing 9-month-old down to join them -- and the rest of a small, crowded dining room -- for dinner? Let's say, for this exercise, that the restaurant is Tinto. Discuss.

For the price of an Inquirer, you could see a photo of the sign with my column in Tuesday's paper. Not posted online.

New chef is Alex Fareri, who was there under Scott Schroeder. Still just as good. (And the owner was never a dancer.) Wonder how Deuce will fare with Bar Ferdinand right there.

A few anonymous wine lovers have created a wonderful online database of BYOs within 30 miles of Center City. They called more than 11,000 restaurants and found 650 BYOs. The database allows seaching by cuisine, location, etc. It's accessible through BYOPhilly. I wrote about it in today's Inquirer, but it's buried in the Business section: Inquirer story

THAT is brilliant, Holly! In the olden days, we were more explicit in explaining why columnists were off. Then someone got the paranoid assumption that burglars could read our "on vacation" boxes and case our houses. So they were changed to generic "So and so's column does not appear today." Sigh. Thanks for the kind words, folks...

Hmmm. You could have asked me... I let the column go dark on Aug. 4 -- that's ONCE this summer before I took off yesterday (Aug. 25). And by gum, I'm taking off again Sept. 1. Yes, you could call it summertime goofing off; I'm lightening my workload on Mondays, when I normally write both Table Talk (for our early Food deadline) and the Tuesday INQlings column. If something major breaks restaurant-wise, I'll get it into INQlings. Thanks for caring...

That's four blank "bells" you're looking at in Craig's review. I'm writing in tomorrow's INQlings that Carmella's not only is closed, the site will go condo.

Lakeside's still there near 9th & Race...

I think you mean Heartthrob Cafe, which was in the Bourse briefly in the mid-1980s.

Clever idea! You guys are lucky you didn't get nailed for an open container or public drunkenness.

Yo Holly, Part of the Zagat charm is the fact that that professionals are not the reviewers. I will grant you that the high-Bell restaurants tend to get a lot of perhaps undeservedly good buzz, but that hyperbole slops over into message boards as well. Chew on this: "Professional" restaurant critics might base their review on perhaps 4 to 10 "covers." When you think about all the variables that may affect a restaurant meal -- from a busboy with a hangover to a waiter in a full snit to the "chef's night off" -- is THAT totally a fair way to judge an entire restaurant operation? Of course it's not perfect, but it's the best we have. I don't know if Zagat has a way to quantify whether people dined there or not.

I wish I could address specifics, but I take write-ins seriously. If a restaurant gets a sizable number of write-ins, I use it -- unless it's a chain.

A couple of answers: Since Rx was new and therefore unrated in the last book, it got a letter ranking for its price range. In its ratings for the next book, due in July, it will receive the more familiar dollar amount. Please don't ask me about other editors and their rationale for including/excluding. There was only one Phila restaurant that actually asked to be dropped from the book, and we honored the request. Another thing you all should know. Editors have less input into the reviews themselves than most people believe. It works like this: The editors receive the restaurants' scores, as well as a list of all the comments. For a typical, moderately popular restaurant, I may receive several hundred comments. I must gauge their tone. If they are uniformly positive or negative, the review will reflect that. If the comments are mixed, which is frequent, the review will reflect the dissent. The editors back in New York bend over backwards to determine that the final reviews you read is a fair representation of what surveyors wrote.